


out at sea

by sassymajesty



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Romantic Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-03 13:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11533620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassymajesty/pseuds/sassymajesty
Summary: Raven regards her for a moment before reclining back on her hand, taking a long gulp from her beer. Clarke knows that look. “Oh, and to prove she’s wrong about you might doing something dumb while you’re living alone, you’re going to marry a complete stranger?”alternatively, a fake wedding at sea between two strangers in love





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's all written out already, so you should expect pretty regular updates! I'm aiming for once or twice a week.

**_i._ **

She thanks the waiter as he brings her third - or fifth? it might be her fourth - piña colada, Clarke sits up slightly on her lounge chair and places her sunglasses on the top of her head. The afternoon sun is bright and she sips her drink contently, the tangy taste of pineapple and the sweetness of the coconut cream overwhelming the rum.

Her go-to drink is usually something she can put in a shot glass - vodka, tequila, something with a provocative name that is pretty much three hard liquors thrown together - but fruity drinks have quickly become her favorite thing to have during this cruise. She blames Octavia, who gets way too giddy when the waiter places her strawberry daiquiri in her waiting hand. 

The sun is warm against her skin and it seems to bounce off Octavia’s thighs as she reclines back on her chair again to tan under the southern sky. Are they in the south hemisphere already? She’s half lost in time and space and it might have something to do with being in the middle of the ocean for the last two weeks, it might be because she’s been drinking all day since they left California.

As Clarke gets comfortable again, reclining on her chair in a way that she can enjoy the sun while still being able to reach for her drink, Raven comes out of the pool, dripping water everywhere as she reaches for her cold beer - Octavia swears she’ll turn make her drink solely fruity drinks before the cruise is over.

“So…” Raven drags out the vowel as she takes a seat near Octavia’s ankle, who’s now lying back with her eyes closed against the sun, “Do we agree that Clarke’s idea is stupid?”

Octavia cracks one eye open, “There was never even a question. It’s literally the dumbest idea she’s ever had.” She swings her feet until they’re resting on top of Raven’s thighs, “Probably even worse than going to Walmart wearing nothing but panties to get us booze.”

Clarke throws her head back as laughter ripples through her body at the memory. “In my defense, that  _ worked _ .” She sips at her drink and cuddles it in between her hands as she glares at both her friends. “And  _ excuse me _ , it’s a great idea. It’s an incredible prank.”

“Getting married to someone you just met isn’t a prank, Clarke. It’s insane.” Octavia glares back at her and raises an eyebrow, sets her jaw tight. If Clarke hadn’t known Octavia since they were in middle school, that look might have scared her, but she just rolls her eyes.

“I won’t actually  _ do _ anything,” Clarke purses her lips and takes a big gulp of her drink before setting it back on the low table beside her chair so she can recline all the way down and ignore her friends, “I’m trying to prove a point.”

“You’re trying to prove that your mom is right,” Raven takes a swig out of her beer as she squeezes water from her hair and stretches her bad leg until it rests on Clarke’s chair, “ _ Gotcha. _ ”

Clarke rolls her eyes theatrically - if she weren’t in med school, she might had taken her chances in the performing arts. “No. That she’s overreacting.”

Raven regards her for a moment before reclining back on her hand, taking a long gulp from her beer. Clarke  _ knows _ that look. “Oh, and to prove she’s wrong about you might doing something dumb while you’re living alone, you’re going to marry a complete stranger?”

“No, listen. She thinks I’m impulsive and reckless,” Clarke starts, only to be interrupted by Octavia mumbling  _ “you are impulsive and reckless” _ under her breath. Clarke only glares, but her friend still has her eyes closed, “Which I’m  _ not _ , and I’ll pretend to get married to someone I just met-” Clarke explains and Octavia mumbles again “ _ which is impulsive and reckless”  _ but Clarke just ignores her and keeps talking, “-so my mom can see how ridiculous it sounds.” Octavia sing songs “ _ impulsive and reckless _ ” dragging out the vowels. Clarke barely bothers, “And I get to scare the shit out of her, which is going to be fun.”

Clarke sips on her drink as she waits for her friends to get on board - it’s boring to pull pranks alone and she’ll need their help organizing things to make it believable. After having to listen to her mother go on and on and  _ on _ about how she’ll crash and burn without her constant advice (read: meddling) followed by almost an hour of listing all mistakes she’s ever done in her teen and young adulthood years, she needs her friends to be on her side.

It’s not like her mom’s worried are unfounded - she gets that. 

Clarke has lost count of how many times she called her mom to come get her from a holding cell in her freshman year of college. She does know the campus officer called her mom more times than she can count in both hands to let Abby know her daughter was drunk off her ass in the middle of the day - oh, the joys of studying in an university that has your mother as an academic.

She went way off the rails during her first year of college. But she was at a completely different place then. Her father had died barely two years ago, her boyfriend had killed himself the summer before she started college and her two best friends had gone to opposite sides of the country to study - Clarke developed a handful of self destructive hobbies then, drinking herself to nearly a coma being the less harmful.

But Clarke grew up  _ a lot _ since then. She attended therapy, left the heavy drinking for weekends only, stopped driving her car at ninety on a forty five lane, focused on her studies and graduated with honors. She even dated the same girl for over an year to prove to herself she wasn’t crippled for life - it ended badly, but by then she was too busy with her med school applications to even bother to feel the pain. She moved in with Octavia and Raven, who were back to Boston for good now, and got a car she didn’t crash within the first week. 

She spent the last three years going from the library straight to the hospital, now she’s going to Australia for her final year of medical school and she  _ deserves _ a memorable goodbye.

Octavia is the first to break the growing silence, “I can’t believe I have to be the voice of reason here,” she sounds much more upset about having to put some sense into her head than by the entirety of Clarke’s plan and how much she’s asking of them, “Clarke, you’re making  _ me _ be the voice of reason.”

“Don’t be,” Clarke draws the last word out, until it’s almost a childish pleading. “You won’t see me for a whole year, you better enjoy my impulsive and reckless self while you can.” She knows it’s a cheap trick, and that her pouting isn’t earning her any good karma points, but she gives it a try anyway.

Mentioning they won’t see her until next June seems to do the trick. Octavia and Raven share a look and Clarke smiling, knowing she won - Octavia huffs and grunts as she reaches for her drink, like she can’t believe she’s agreeing to this, and takes a big gulp from the fruity mix while Raven tilts back to rest her weight on her hands, exposing her neck to the sun and working out the details in her head on how to turn this into something no one will forget.

“It won’t do any harm,” Raven shrugs, holding on to Octavia’s feet so they don’t fall when she reaches for her beer, “And I’m  _ dying _ to see Abby’s face when you show up with a fiancé.”

They really are the  _ ride or die _ they promised her they’d always be.

The three of them spend the afternoon drinking all the tropical drinks in the menu, celebrating in victory when Raven finally gives up her beer to taste all the fruity drinks, and trying to come up with someone who would be willing to play the part. 

In their two weeks aboard, they had gone to virtually every party thrown in the ship, from the black tie galas in the main event room to the nearly illicit parties happening at 4am in a too crowded cabin. In those parties, they had gotten to know  _ countless  _ people and they had met their fair share of eligible singles, had made out with a few of them as well, so the list they had to go through was rather extensive.

Except  _ none _ of  them seems right for Clarke to “get married to”. Raven and Octavia shout name after name of every person they thought would make a good spouse for Clarke - more often than not followed by a brief description because Clarke used to be too drunk to remember her cabin number, let alone someone’s name - as she constantly shuts them down.

The blonde guy who worked as a lifeguard in the children’s pool is “too bulky”, which earned Clarke a ten minute lecture on how he was the perfect candidate - he had a killer swimmer’s body and loved children, it doesn’t get better than that. The pre med they had met at their first gala is “not believable”, because Clarke Griffin would never go for a doctor and Raven almost fell over laughing as Octavia reminded everyone that that same Clarke had made out with two attendings last year alone. The tattooed girl they had lost all sorts of drinking games to is “too out there” and no one says a thing because the way Clarke downs her drink leaves it pretty clear that she remembers sticking her tongue down that girl’s throat three nights ago.

By the time they part ways to go get ready for dinner, Octavia is shouting into the wind that Clarke is too goddamn picky for someone looking for a two-day fake marriage. Raven drags Octavia’s drunk ass back to her cabin while she mumbles something about explosions and “the last one standing” - it only mildly worries Clarke, but she knows that her chemical engineer friend would probably be able to pull it off without much fuss.

Clarke showers and washes her hair with more care than she’s put into it in ages, trying to get herself to sober up and shake the fuzzy warmth that fills her. She  _ has _ been drinking since 10am, claiming it was probably already 5pm in Australia and she was merely adapting herself to the new timezone.

But her mother had intersected her when she was all but skipping to her cabin, with much less balance than she wishes she had, and launched into a fifteen minute scolding about how she’d get herself killed by alcohol poisoning a month into her life as an Aussie. Her mom’s chiding had only made this whole fake wedding as a prank thing sound like even more of a genius idea.

Maybe she should ask the pretty black guy with the old money and the Virginia accent - maybe he’d be down to play her husband for a few days and piss her mom off. They’ve never talked but they have been to enough parties together for Clarke to know him in passing and have enough courage to ask him upfront without fussing. Yes, he’d make a good husband and she’s sticking with water for dinner.

Thumbing idly on her phone to avoid her mom while she waits for the girls at a table in the grand hall, Clarke searches the Facebook group they’d all got put in for the pretty guy and her husband-to-be. It takes her all of two seconds to find a picture of  _ Nathan _ kissing his boyfriend in a selfie they had taken a few hours ago, the sunset leaving the entire ocean dark orange and red. 

Clarke sighs and tosses her phone on the table as Raven plops down on the chair beside her, “I found you the perfect wife,” Raven says in lieu of a hello, with Octavia giggling as she trails behind, “I can’t believe I didn’t think of her before. She’s  _ literally _ perfect.”

Octavia sits on the other side of Raven, barely containing her joy as she leans on the table as she chimes in, “We may or may not have stalked her before coming here and  _ fuck _ , she’s hot,” Clarke frowns, her brain barely having time to catch up before even more information being thrown in her way as Octavia carries on, “Like legs for days, smoldering glare, ass that won’t quit  _ hot _ .

“What, who is she?” Clarke rakes her brains for a girl that matches the description, but she comes out short - she met a  _ lot _ of hot girls in this ship, but none stands up. They must have met - it is a big ship, but there are only so many places two people can hide before they eventually meet.

Raven pops nearly half a breadstick in her mouth and answers, her words muffled by the pastry, “Anya’s cousin.”

“And Anya is…” Clarke lets the question hang in the air, half wanting to get all the details right, half wanting Raven to focus solely on telling her more about her future wife, maybe find a picture or  _ something _ .

Octavia steals Raven’s breadstick and crumbles it into pieces on her place, which leaves Clarke feeling antsy and hungry - she remembers having lunch, but that was a solid eight hours ago and she needs solid food. “The girl Raven sneaks out to bang every night,” Octavia says casually, before popping a piece of bread in her mouth.

Reaching out for Octavia’s crumbles as Raven greedily took back her destroyed breadstick, Clarke lights up as the description rings a bell, “Oh, tall, blonde and dangerous. Yeah, I know her.” Clarke and Octavia had seen Raven go for it with this Anya girl a few nights back and despite her most vehement denials, it was obvious they had something going on.

“Can we please stop talking about who  _ I _ am banging and start talking about who  _ you _ can bang?” Raven points her breadstick at Clarke, who casually reaches for her water to wash down the bread. She’s mid-gulp when Raven speaks, so she doesn’t get the chance to say she has no plans on banging her wife before Raven carries on talking, “Lexa is perfect. Everyone else we thought about was either a frat boy or a party girl - not believable. But your mom will definitely believe you’re serious about this if you show up with a future  _ fucking _ politician in your arm.”

Raven sounds ridiculously excited about this, but Clarke would be lying if she said she isn’t picturing an ‘ass that won’t quit’ clad in a pencil skirt, “Shit, I wanna be a politician’s wife.” The fact that her mom absolutely loathed politicians is an added bonus to all this, “Do you think she’ll go for it?”

Before Raven can open her mouth, Octavia chuckles in disbelief as she talks, “No way in hell! That girl is way too stiff.”

“Would you shut the fuck up? Anya already said she’ll help us,” Raven bites back and Clarke is too busy picturing this Lexa as five different kinds of woman to even hear Octavia asking how Raven will repay Anya for all the help.

Clarke sets her water down carefully, shaking slightly either from nerves or near starvation, “Good, when do I meet my future wife?”

“As soon as we get booze. Anya is waiting for us at the terrace,” Raven’s words are barely out of her mouth when Clarke starts to stand up, too curious about this girl to wait around. Clarke can already tell for certain her resolve of sticking to water all night is more than gone. They make their way to the bar to get beer and tequila, Octavia ordering a separate  _ jar _ of some new fruity drink she found, when Raven leans in towards Clarke, whispering, “Do you know how you’ll propose to her?”

_ Fuck _ .

They set the makeshift cooler they had gotten from the bartender in a corner near the back wall. The terrace is quiet and nearly empty, the strong night wind overwhelming almost any chance of keeping a conversation. People often choose to stay by the pool around this time or hanging out in one of the dozens of places one can find some fun inside, safe and sound from the biting wind, so when Clarke find two figures by the railing, she knows immediately who they are - Anya, who’s leaning her back against the bars, feet crossed at the ankle, and Lexa beside her.

Clarke lets herself gaze -  _ stare _ . The first thing she sees is a tattoo on her arm, going from her shoulders to nearly her elbow, an intricate design she can’t quite make out with the poor lighting. Her dark curly hair is swept to one side, exposing her neck and the other tattoos she has - Clarke squints and she finds an infinity symbol at the base of her neck, and something else that goes down her spine and disappears under her tank top. Lexa is saying something, gesticulating wildly, and the way the full moon hits her side profile is enough the leave Clarke gawking.

If they were just two girls at a party, Clarke would be all over her.

It hits her that in half an hour or so, she’ll be asking Lexa, a total stranger at the moment, to marry her. The absurdity of it gives Clarke some odd kind of confidence and she strides forward, shoulders back and chin tilted up, trying to remember how to talk up a girl  _ clearly _ out of her league.

Raven leads the way, marching towards Anya with a certainty that comes with intimacy, leaving Clarke and Octavia to trail behind her, “Hey, gorgeous. Missed me?” Raven half whispers, half shouts to Anya, the wind carrying her words. Anya merely rolls her eyes as she leans in for a kiss before Raven turns to them, “The blonde one is Clarke, I told you about her. The other one is Octavia.”

Huffing and, apparently, taking offense on Raven’s words, Octavia leans towards Clarke and grunts, “I’m  _ the other one _ . She says I’m her best friend but she didn’t even bother to talk about he. How rude.”

Clarke’s laughter and her remark about how Octavia isn’t the one trying to marry Anya’s cousin get stuck in her throat as Lexa meets her eyes - under the faint light of the moon, Clarke can’t really tell what color they are, but she’d have to be blind not to see how they  _ shine _ .

“Anya,” ‘tall, blonde and dangerous’ points at herself as she takes a step away from the railing, before gesturing broadly to the woman beside her, “Lexa. Did you bring the booze?”

Nodding in answer to Anya’s question, Clarke swallows thickly at the once over she gets from Lexa, eyes burning her exposed skin. Oh, she’s going to need  _ so much _ tequila.


	2. Chapter 2

**_ii._ **

Leaning further over the railing until almost half her body is off the ship, Lexa watches the full moon painting the mostly still waters, feel the saltiness of the sea sprinkling on her face. The smell of the night sky takes her back to simpler times, to weekend trips to the beach with her mom with the sole purpose of building bad sandcastles, to evenings spend driving along the coast with her hair in the wind and a hand resting on her thigh.

During the day, every inch of this massive ship is overflowing with people drinking too much and laughing too loudly, leaving Lexa to feel more lonely than she would be if she had actually rented that cabin she had her eyes on. But she slips off her shoes, feeling the cold wooden boards under her toes, and throws her hair over one shoulder, trying to win the fight against the wind.

The calm she searched all day in all corners of this ship finally finds her.

“Hey, hot stuff,” a voice half muffled by the wind reaches her and Lexa turns, knowing fully well the one person who’s find her here. The blonde sways her hips towards her and Lexa slips her flip flops back on, trying to look somewhat composed despite her lack of clothes - a tank top, shorts and flip flops are barely clothes at all for her usual self, but Anya seems to always think she’s overdressed, “I figured I’d find you here.”

It took Lexa a day and a half to discover the terrace and ten minutes to fall in love with it. And while she did spend most of her days with Anya, being dragged from one “ _ super cool” _ place to another, this is where she liked to end her days. Even more so after Anya found herself someone to play with and now left Lexa to her own devices every night.

“And I thought I’d have this place to myself,” Lexa rolls her eyes dramatically, following Anya with her eyes as she settles beside her, leaning her back against the railing, tilting her head up to look at the stars, “No hot date tonight?”

Anya shrugs, eyes still wandering the infinity above them - she’s always loved outer space so much Lexa can swear half of her love for stars can be traced back to Anya’s influence when they were little, “I’m meeting her here.”

Lexa makes a disgusted sound that is only half joking, “Seriously? Of all the rooms in this ship, are you  _ really _ going to have sex in the one place I actually like in here?”

Anya kicks her shin, harder than she had to, “No, asshole. Her friends want to meet up and drink.” Lexa bends down to rub at the sore spot, trying to massage the annoying throbbing away, and tries to come with with new plans for the night. She has no particular interest in spending time with the girl Anya is hooking up with, let alone her friends. Maybe the indoor pool has a spot she can read for a while. “And don’t even try to go anywhere,” Anya says in a warning tone and Lexa wonders when she got so good at reading her, “I told them you’d be here already. Raven’s friends have a  _ proposal _ to you.”

Ignoring the ominous way Anya said ‘proposal’, Lexa sets her jaw and looks sternly at Anya, “How on earth would they even know about me? I know very well you’re not a talker during sex,” Anya has the decency to blush at Lexa’s remark. They’ve lived together for five years and sharing a wall came with a whole lot more sharing than they’ve bargained for. “Who  _ are _ these people? Do  _ you _ even know them?”

“You’re my best friend, of course I talk about you,” Anya says in a too high pitched voice for her to be telling the entire truth and clearly ignores half the questions when she turns to face Lexa once more, “But tell me, what boring shit did you do today without me to guide you?”

Anya’s blatant deflecting doesn’t go unnoticed, but Lexa gives in and tell her about her afternoon lost amidst books in the surprisingly good bookstore they had aboard - she came out of it with a few too many books on Aztecs, but she’s been fascinated about their culture lately. Somewhere down the line, she starts talking about her new ideas to revamp her strategic plan for the first two years of her mayorship - she had spent her afternoon sketching a list of twenty four goals divided into five sections, ranging from building more opportunities for the arts and creative industries to implanting a service that assures fiscal integrity.

To Anya’s credit, she didn’t look bored once. As Lexa babbles about her plans for farmers’ market, her hands waving in wild gestures, her passion for what she does clearly leaking through her every pore, she makes a mental note to send Anya some very expensive wine when they go back home - the poor thing had put up with more of Lexa’s babbling in this trip than she deserved.

Her incessant rambling about increasing affordable housing choices comes to an abrupt stop when she sees three women walking towards them. She’s seen Raven sneaking out of Anya’s cabin enough times to recognize her, but she couldn’t quite place the other two. She politely averts her eyes when Anya leans in to kiss Raven, her hand pressing the small of her back in an intimate gesture.

Lexa has nearly forgotten what a touch like that even feels like.

Raven introduces the two other girls and Lexa lets her eyes drift towards them, with her usual bored look that she can’t really seem to get rid of, no matter how many times Anya calls her out on it. Before she can take the brunette with the wild hairdo in, her eyes glue to the blonde’s -  _ Clarke _ , she’s the one Raven called Clarke. Even under the faint moonlight, Lexa can tell they’re blue and way too intense for her to hold her gaze without choking on her own spit. Lexa wets her lips when Anya introduces them, if she can even call that general gesture an introduction, and it only barely registers with Lexa that  _ that _ means that Anya doesn’t know the two of them either.

Lexa lets her eyes wander, from Clarke’s sharp stare to the dip of her throat, a light sheen of sweat coating her neck, to the swell of her breasts, all but spilling out of her too low cut shirt, to her tan legs clad in impossibly short shorts. She’s tortuously aware of how attractive Clarke is and painfully reminded of how gay she really is.

When trying to make her way up the political ladder, Lexa had deemed relationships useless and slowly traded potentially harmful one night stands to her own fingers and some few selected toys. When trying to make herself be taken seriously in a world dominated by whiskey and testosterone, Lexa had buried a part of her that had always left her weak and vulnerable, building a wall of power around her instead.

That same damn weakness had grown tired of being shoved aside, apparently.

Making their way towards the back wall where they’d be more or less sheltered from the night wind, Lexa catches her breath every time Clarke’s hand brushes against hers - how many times can that even happen by  _ accident _ , anyway?

The cute blonde -  _ Clarke _ , her name is Clarke - sits cross legged beside her on the floor, too close for comfort, her shorts hiking up even further as she gets herself comfortable in the floorboards roughed by the salt water. Lexa folds her legs neatly underneath her as beers get passed around together with shot glasses she has no intention to use. She busies herself braiding her hair in a loose pattern over her shoulder, against the wind, while everyone takes their first shot. If she watches Clarke downing her own shot, she doesn’t chastise herself over it. If she admires how neatly Clarke can take a good amount of nearly pure alcohol without making a face and watches as a drop of tequila trailing down her neck, she tells herself she’s only appreciating the human capacity for such feats.

Her own excuses only get her so far.

Lexa nurses her beer for the better part of one hour, the bottle growing warm and the liquid going flat as she peels the label with her short nails. She stays relatively out of the conversation, only chipping in when Raven wants to know something embarrassing about Anya or when a question is directed towards her.

Clarke, however, has no inhibition when it comes to conversation - and  _ touching. _ She places a hand on Lexa’s knee as she leans forward to grab another beer and leaves it there as she tells the tale of riding a clandestine barrel at night when she went to Niagara falls. Clarke grabs her arm delicately as she centers herself after laughing too much at Octavia’s - the other girl’s name is  _ Octavia _ , Lexa makes a mental note that soon goes forgotten - attempt to bake someone named Lincoln a birthday cake. She sets her hand flat and cold on Lexa’s upper thigh as she talks about all the wild underground parties going on after hours in this ship - if Lexa jumps slightly when Clarke squeezes her flesh softly before letting it go, no one says a thing.

“Clarke, it’s been almost an  _ hour _ .” Raven whines and leans drunkenly against Anya. She had refused to drink beer, claiming she had had her share during the day, but tequila was quickly bringing her to her knees, “When are you going to woman up and ask Lexa the thing?”

Lexa narrows her eyes and turns to Raven, confused at being suddenly summoned into the conversation she was very happy to simply watch from afar. When she gets no answer, she turns to Clarke and watches her laughter get stuck in her throat, the blush she had gotten from her last shot vanishing from her face.

“Well? What is it?” Lexa turns to face Clarke, who’s clutching her beer tight enough for her to worry it’ll break into pieces. 

“Okay, here’s the thing.” Slowly, Clarke sets the bottle down in front of her and runs her fingers through her tangled hair, biting down her bottom lip when her eyes meet Lexa’s, “I told you I’m going to Australia for a year, right? And my mom, my dear overprotective and ever the meddler mom, think I won’t last a day there without doing something stupid.” Clarke rolls her eyes like the idea of her doing something stupid is preposterous, but Lexa can see that happening - and she’s known the blonde for little over half an hour, “So, I came up with this idea - I’m going to show up with someone and tell her: hey, mom, I’m getting married in this very ship and starting life anew in Australia, we’re gonna have pretty Aussie babies and give them pretty stuffed kangaroo.”

Lexa rolls her eyes, “How stereotypical of you.” She bites the inside of her cheeks to keep herself from smiling at the image of two tiny blonde babies snuggling with tiny stuffed kangaroos, she can’t really condone that kind of thinking, no matter how cute it sounds. She turns back to the insanity of Clarke’s plan, “Besides, won’t that be  _ proving _ her point?”

Octavia stops in the middle of taking a gulp from her beer, some of it dripping down her jaw as she shouts, “ _ Exactly _ what I told her.”

Clarke reaches behind her and unceremoniously palms Octavia’s face to keep her quiet, earning her a hearty laughter from a clearly way too drunk Raven, “No, listen. It’s the irony of it, you see?” Clarke gives Lexa her full attention, leaning closer as if that will make her understand better. “I  _ know _ what stupid looks like, I’ve done more than my fair share of it through the years. But she’s worrying for nothing, I’m a big girl I know how to behave.”

“Your entire premise is flawed and you have an odd way to use irony, but go on,” Lexa raises her eyebrows in mocking and feels the corner of her mouth lifting up in a smirk. Clarke chuckles at her snappy answer, her eyes falling closed for a moment as she grips Lexa’s arm for balance. 

Lexa sets her jaw tight as Clarke casually traces her fingertips down her forearm, settling on drawing little circles on her wrist with her thumb as she speaks again, “The plan is to find a fake fiancée, ask the ship captain to fake marry us, get “married” in a pretty venue wearing pretty dresses and after giving my mom a heart attack, I tell her it’s all a joke.”

“Where do I fit in this whole scheme?” Lexa swallows thickly, already knowing where this is going. She not so smoothly untangles her arm from Clarke’s grip to scratch her neck - a poor excuse, but the touch makes it harder for her to think.

“Well…” Clarke lets her hand fall on Lexa’s knees, squeezing it almost imperceptibly as she bites her lips before whispering, “Will you marry me?”

Despite having a solid inclination as to where Clarke’s whole explanation was leading to, hearing the actual words said out loud felt like a dream. A  _ nightmare _ where a stranger with a pretty smile and soft eyes asks her hand in marriage and she almost says yes.

Lexa scoffs out a laughter, shaking her head vehemently, “No.”

“But you see, literally everyone else in this ship isn’t a believable match. Abby would see right through the whole thing,” Octavia struggles to get to her knees so she can look at Lexa past Clarke’s shoulder, “But you and your politician vibe and your killer stare is something else, she’ll think you two are for real.”

Raven peeks out from where she’s obviously kissing Anya’s neck and squints at Lexa, “Plus, you two make a cute couple.”

Making a show of rolling her eyes at the two girls, Lexa bites back, “I understand why I’d be your best bet, but this is insane,” then she turns to Clarke, her own eyes on fire as she meets Clarke’s - she can see a plea in them, but mostly, a matching fire, “It’s incredibly childish to prank your mother like that, and I’m not about to be a part of that. Forget it.”

Clarke remains quiet, a rebuke clearly stuck in her throat. Lexa focus so hard on Clarke’s eyes - how the blue seems to grow darker with every blink, how neither want to lose the staring battle - that she doesn’t notice Anya standing up until she’s right beside her. She grips Lexa’s wrist, pulling her up like one would do with a toddler, speaking through gritted teeth, “Lexa. A word?”

Getting up with as much composure as she can manage while being pulled to the front of the terrace, Lexa rolls her eyes, pursing her lips tight in anger, “You can have all the words you want, you’re not changing my mind.”

Anya stays silent as they walk the couple of steps towards the railing, trying to get some resemblance of privacy. Judging by the look Anya gives her, Lexa can already tell she’ll hate whatever comes out of her mouth next. “Lexa. Do you remember what the purpose of this entire trip was in the first place?”

Lexa leans an arm on the railing, gripping the metal so tight her knuckles go white - she knows her sarcasm grows wild and free when she’s under stress and she blames it throughout on Anya’s treating her like a goddamn child, “Hm, let’s see if I remember the words verbatim.” She tilts her head to the side in feign reflection, spitting the words to Anya. “ _ ‘You need to learn to live before you decide to bury yourself in the mess that politics is.’ _ I didn’t realize you meant  _ this _ .”

“You do need to learn how to enjoy yourself and loosen up a little fucking bit,” Anya is calm while she ignores Lexa’s temper tantrum, “You walk around like you have a stick up your ass and while I’m used to it, your future voters may  _ not _ .” Lexa bites her bottom lip hard enough to leave an indenture in it, nearly drawing blood. Her cousin has never measured her words when she thinks Lexa needs to hear them. “Besides, what harm will it do?”

“What harm-” Lexa can’t even get herself to repeat the entire question before the fire she’s been trying to keep down takes her entire inside, burning her politeness to the ground, “Do you realize how fast things go around in the internet? Or are you naive enough to think no one will have cameras in the ‘wedding’ and that this won’t blow up in my face later on?” Her words bite and if she speaks them louder than she needs to, she doesn’t care. “I won’t jeopardize my career for a  _ prank _ .”

“ _ Jesus _ , Mayor Woods, chill,” Anya rolls her eyes and puts herself between Lexa and their attentive crows, “We’ll say ‘no phones’ then, that’s not a problem,” Anya sets her hand on Lexa’s arm in a silent plea for her to consider it - as if  _ she _ is the one who’s overreacting and not Clarke with her stupid idea of getting married to scare her mother, “You know what this is, right? You’re afraid to do  _ anything _ remotely fun, all because-”

“Do you remember what happened the last time I did that?” Lexa snaps, her voice low and threatening. Anya knows, Anya has been there through every painful step of the way.

Her voice grows softer when she answers, the pain showing in both of their eyes, “I know, Lex. I get it.” Anya runs her palm up and down her arm, trying to soothe her, and Lexa leans into it, searching comfort to all the pain the gaping hole in her chest brings, “But this won’t  _ kill _ anyone. You have to know that, you need to learn this again. No one will die if you-”

Lexa shakes her head as she stares at the floor, almost defeated, almost without any fight in her anymore. All the fire that consumed her moments ago extinguished, leaving behind a quiet nothingness, “You can’t know that.”

_ “No one _ will die if you let yourself have some fun again. I guarantee you no one will die if you get to know a pretty girl and prank her mom with her.” Anya says those words in a methodical way, as if saying them in her most scholarly voice will make Lexa believe - and she wants to believe. “I saw the way you looked at her. Maybe you’ll even get to kiss your future bride.”

“I’m not kissing her, I’m not playing pretend,” the mere thought of kissing Clarke makes her chest ache, her insides twist with guilt, “I can’t- I- I won’t.”

Anya reaches for her chin, tilting her head up until their eyes meet again. Lexa holds her gaze, only barely so, trying to blink away the tears that threaten to come rushing and breaking her into pieces. She has so carefully built a wall around her when it comes to this that she didn’t realize how weak the structure could become with a few well placed words. Anya tilts her head to the side and leans in, ready to catch Lexa if she falls, “Do you really think Costia would want you to shut yourself off like this?”

“You can’t know what Costia would have wanted,” her voice is tiny, almost not there at all, “I can’t either. And it’s all because I-”

“It wasn’t your fault. It  _ wasn’t _ .” Anya says it in the same quiet voice, bringing Lexa back to the nights that’s all Anya would tell her, trying to convince her those words were true. “You’ll be fine. You’ll learn how to feel again and I’m not even asking that. I’m just asking for you to give yourself a chance.” Lexa shakes her head again, but they both know she’s accepting her lost and giving in, “Come on, just- Give it a try. If, after you get to know Clarke and think it over for a while, you still don’t want to do this, I’ll marry her instead. I’ll play the Commander and convince everyone I’m the one for Clarke.”

The way Anya says it makes Lexa feel the light bubble of a growing laughter in her chest and she smirks, blinking fast enough for the tears pooling in her eyes to disappear almost completely, “I am not the one for-”

“Is that a yes, I heard a yes.” Anya grips both her forearms and wave her from one side to the other, placing a kiss on her cheek - like they did when they were tiny kids without a worry in the world.

“Okay, fine,” Lexa rolls her eyes, breathing in deeply before saying “ _ Yes _ .”

Anya squeezes her forearms in reassurance before letting her go, turning to the girls still sitting on the floor talking in between them, saying in a sing-song voice, stretching the vowels, “She agreed! She’ll marry you.”

Swallowing thickly past the lump in her throat as Clarke turns to look at her, Lexa bites down on her bottom lip and watches Clarke getting up with astonishing balance for someone who has been drinking non stop for the last hour, her eyes growing warmer and her smile spreading freely, lighting up her whole being.

Clarke closes the distance between them, placing a hand delicately on her waist - that Lexa fiercely pretends doesn’t affect her at all - as she asks, “Really? Are you sure?” Lexa nods and the look on Clarke’s face makes her almost sure that she did indeed make the right choice in going along with it. Wrapping her arm around Lexa’s waist until they’re glued to the hip, Clarke places the lightest kiss on her cheek before turning to her friends, triumph clear in her shining blue eyes, “Raven, Octavia. I’d like very much for you to meet my drop-dead-gorgeous fiancée.”

Rolling her eyes at the shameless compliment, Lexa lets her arm fall softly around Clarke’s waist as well, smiling shyly at the excited looks on everyone’s face - Anya seems ready to do a double backflip and land on the ocean in pure joy. 

When she realizes Clarke hasn’t let go of her when the five of them start planning the details of what needs to happen next, Lexa can’t help but lean into it.


	3. Chapter 3

**_iii._ **

Clarke sits cross legged at the edge of Lexa’s bed, thumbing away at her phone while she waits for the woman to finish getting ready.

She had insisted in coming along, despite Lexa’s offhand comment that she could change clothes without much supervision. It made her snort a laugh - apparently the stuck up politician had a sense of humor. If she’s being honest with herself, Clarke had used it as a poor excuse for her to snoop around and figure out more about the private woman she’s about to marry. But that had been a complete dead end - a pair of reading glasses sitting on top of a book about Aztecs culture on the night stand is the only indication the room has any occupants at all.

So she settles for texting Octavia and Raven instead of looking around her future wife’s panties drawer. The two women had created a group chat named “fake wedding headquarters” with so many emojis in the title Clarke has trouble reading the messages when the notification pops up. Clarke scrolls through the texts, the absurdity of their plans making her head hurt. But she knows that when she does get married for real, she wants Octavia and Raven to organize it. Their plans are meticulous, despite the fact their ship won’t dock at any shores for another five days and the resources they have at hand are limited at best.

When Octavia sends the third flower arrangement in as many minutes, Clarke sighs heavily and throws her phone aside. She can’t be bothered to tell Octavia there’s no way they can find that many kinds of flowers in under ten hours, not when her picture is attached to an aggressive caption all in uppercase and a few too many exclamation points. Instead, she lets herself fall back on Lexa’s bed, feeling the slight give of the mattress and closing her eyes for a moment as she lets all her doubts fester in her mind.

For what’s worth, Lexa seems to be on board.

At least as much as Clarke could gather in the combined five minutes they had had together.

They had met up for breakfast along with Anya, Octavia and Raven. In lieu of a hello, Clarke had summoned the courage to kiss her cheek, a hand pressing slightly against her elbow. She convinced herself with the lame excuse that they should grow comfortable with each other if they really wanted to sell this wedding - which was  _ nonsense _ , considering the whole point of this wedding is to convince her mother that Clarke isn’t reckless enough to go around marrying every pretty person she finds,  _ not _ that she had fallen in love in the span of a day and a half. But something inside her still turns when she sees Lexa smiling at her when she drew back -  _ well _ , not exactly smiling, but there was a hint of something in there for sure.

Lexa had stayed mostly silent all through breakfast, only talking to Anya occasionally. Clarke watched her poking her scrambled eggs, uninterested, and drinking probably more coffee than the four of them combined. Truth be told, all Clarke had wanted to do all breakfast was ask Raven and Octavia to shush about this ballroom and that caterer so she could actually get to  _ talk _ to Lexa, but all she managed was to drink as much juice as she could get her hands on to help her get rid of the last of her hangover.

After breakfast, Clarke had unceremoniously stolen Lexa away, asking loud and clear for her to follow her to her cabin so she could change into something less comfortable before they went off to talk the captain into fake marrying them - which, technically, was a lie; she’d change from the crumpled shirt she had slept with into a sundress and keep her flip flops. What she really wanted was to talk to Lexa, get to know her a little better.

They had just started talking about Lexa’s campaign when they got to Clarke’s cabin, the future mayor excitedly talking about setting up outdoor gyms near the one retirement home they had back in her small town. Clarke walked into her cabin half watching where she was going and half glancing back at Lexa, babbling about how going to those gyms can help improve flexibility and memory in older people as she threw her shirt haphazardly on her unmade bed and opened her closet to find herself a dress.

Clarke made quick work of her shorts before she realized Lexa had stopped talking completely. She isn’t shy about her body and is more than used to keep the conversation going while wearing only panties - no one gets any privacy when their best friend is a Reyes. Clarke turned around just in time to see Lexa politely averting her eyes, becoming suddenly way too interested in the ring a glass of water had left on the nightstand. She slipped her dress on pretty quickly, jokingly telling Lexa it was safe to look, but all she got was a frown.

The silence that hovers and swirls around them as they made their way to Lexa’s cabin was so heavy Clarke felt like she could reach out and touch it.

They had gone over the basics yesterday, with Clarke doing most of the talking and all of the drinking. Before the night ended, Lexa had learned what music Clarke listened to, her favorite branches of medicine, how she’s a history nerd, and most of the stupid things Clarke had done in college - including the tattoo she got on her butt cheek that says “I rock” in a fancy handwriting on a dare. All Clarke had  _ really _ learned about Lexa is that her mother is a state senator and she’s wanted to be president since she was nine.

But Clarke woke up with an urge to learn  _ more _ . Maybe it’s because Lexa is so secretive about her live, maybe it’s the way her eyes shine when she talks about becoming a leader and helping people, but maybe it’s simply that  _ something else _ that she feels with certain people. If that  _ something else _ has gotten her in trouble before, well, she’s always been a glass-half-full kind of person.

Clarke peels herself from the mattress when the bathroom door unlocks. It amuses her that Lexa has to put the lock on it, as if she’d been afraid Clarke would barge right in. She reaches for her phone so she can put it on silent mode - the constant  _ ping _ signalizing new texts has grown annoying - and she misses the moment Lexa emerges from the bathroom.

When she looks up, she almost drops her phone along with her jaw.

Clarke throws her legs over the edge of the bed, faintly remembering she’s wearing a pretty short sundress and a little composure can’t hurt, while she takes Lexa in. Her hair is off her face, held back by a dutch braid that falls to the side. She has a white button down shirt tucked into high waisted shorts, in a conservative length and a roomy fit that still elongates her legs in a way that makes Clarke swallows thickly.

Breathing out a “ _ fuck” _ before she has the mind to stop herself, Clarke gets up and adjusts her dress, feeling slightly underdressed in her flip flops as she watches Lexa slipping on Oxford shoes. “You look nice,” Clarke says, earning an amused glance from Lexa as she finished tying her shoes.

“I figured I’d make an effort. I am meeting my future mother-in-law, after all,” Lexa teases with a light smirk and something settles inside of Clarke - Lexa really is on board with all this.

Clarke grabs her satchel bag and throws it over her shoulder, glad to have something to hold on to as they walk out of the cabin. “We’re talking to the captain first, right?” If the captain decides this is just some silly prank and that he’s above it all, they better start thinking about something else entirely.

Lexa merely nods curtly and walks towards the starboard bow in a brisk pace, as if she’s not used to going anywhere in a pace resembling a leisure walk. Clarke keeps up, although she’d rather take her time., maybe get a bloody mary to help ease her nerves. But Lexa is knocking on the cockpit with a heavy fist and straightening up her spine. 

The watchstander answers the door with a frown and Clarke watches Lexa transform into the spitting image of Hillary Clinton as she shakes his hand firmly and exchanges a few pleasantries with him, before demanding to see the captain in a tone that didn’t leave any room for argument. The able rate retrieves into the cockpit, closing the door with a polite nod and Lexa turns to Clarke, looking very content with herself.

“Did Anya dared you into using your politician charisma to charm the crew into doing your bidding?” Anya would have, Clarke ponders, even if she had only known the woman for as long as she’s known Lexa.

Lexa closes her eyes for a moment and shrugs with one shoulder, smirking as she answers, “She might have, but I did get us a moment to talk to the captain.” They hear footsteps coming from the cockpit and Lexa dusts imaginary lint from her blouse as she lifts her chin up, whispering to Clarke, “You better bring your A game when you’re explaining this madness.”

If she’s being honest, Clarke hadn’t even  _ thought _ about how difficult it might be to get an audition to talk to the captain. She figured they could just… show up, and wing it. 

She lets herself imagine what would it be like being in this position with a frat boy. First of all, she’s gone out with enough of them to know for sure he’d have his arm around her shoulders at all times, trying to  _ sell _ this as well as possible. Clarke can imagine a guy wearing boat shoes and a graphic t-shirt he wears ironically trying to convince the captain to do this by shoving several Franklins in his face.

When Lexa makes an “after you” gesture for Clarke and hovers her hand near the small of her back as the watchstander guides them inside, Clarke is glad for all the conspiracy that convinced Lexa to be her bride.

The captain adjusts his uniform when he gets up from his desk, a diplomatic smile plastered on his face. Lexa wears a similar one as she reaches out her hand for him to shake, greeting him with a curtly “Captain Jaha,” and a firm grip on his hand. She goes on about what a pleasure it is to be on board of his vessel and Clarke stays back, all but hiding behind Lexa, as she gains his trust with a few words.

“We’ve come here to ask you for a favor of sorts, in fact,” Lexa motions for Clarke to stand beside her, which Clarke does begrudgingly. For the first time since they entered the room, Jaha’s eyes lay upon her, taking her in, “Captain Jaha, this is-” 

“Clarke,” he cuts Lexa before she can finish her sentence, reaching out to engulf her in a half hug that feels as awkward as hugs can be, “What a pleasure to have you in my cockpit.”

Lexa raises her eyebrows, staring at the way Jaha pats Clarke on her shoulder, “You two know each other.” 

It’s not really a question, but Clarke bites down on her lip and nods, “He’s friends with my mom’s boyfriend.” Somehow, it had completely escaped her mind that the captain that is supposed to fake marry them has worked with Marcus for over a decade. Somehow, she didn’t consider that he’s known for following rules above anything, harm who it might.

“Oh, he is. This is fantastic,” Lexa says quietly, with her polite smile never wavering. Clarke can almost tell the engines inside her brain are working at full capacity to figure a way to make this work. Or maybe she’s merely trying to come up with a way to get rid of the lunatic that is clearly forcing her to make a fool out of herself.

He turns from Clarke to Lexa and then back to Clarke, “What can I do for you girls?”

Lexa turns with an amused look and raises her eyebrows as she gestures for Clarke to go on. Clarke sighs, shooting Lexa a glare before diving head first into her explanation. The further she goes on, the more insane it sounded even to her own ears. She’s given up all hope by the time she’s finished and half wants to cower behind Lexa again. 

To Clarke’s surprise, Jaha  _ laughs _ . “While I’m sure Abby will have a priceless reaction, well, I can’t do that.” He shakes his head, clearing the amusement from his face as he explains, “Captains aren’t allowed to marry anyone anymore.”

Lexa interferes, taking a step further and pleads once more “We’re asking for a pretend ceremony, I’m sure you’d be able to do that.” The way she says it, her voice low and sultry, makes Clarke’s insides swish from one side to another. With a voice like that and those green eyes staring into her soul the way they were doing with Jaha, Clarke is pretty sure she’d do anything.

“You see, Ms. Woods, I’m not really in the pranking business,” he sounds stern, but not really rude. “Perhaps you could ask one of your friends. It’ll have the same effect.”

“Of course, I understand. Thank you for your time,” Lexa politely nods and reaches out of his hand again, shaking it firmly with a wide smile on her face. “If you’re ever in Maine, please visit. I’d love to show you the waterfalls we have in the outskirts of my town.”

After a few more pleasantries and Jaha assuring her that, yes, he will visit, they leave the cockpit. They’re barely out the door when Clarke snaps at Lexa, “How can you be so polite?”

“It’s called having manners, Clarke,” Lexa rolls her eyes as they make their way back to their friends. She needs to cancel lunch with her mom and maybe a bucket or five of that fruity drink Octavia loves so much. “He listened to us, he’s just not allowed to do that. There’s nothing wrong with it”

Clarke is pouting like a five year old, she  _ knows _ that, she just can’t stop. Maybe they could ask one of the frat boys to dress up as a captain. “But the way he-” 

She doesn’t get to finish her thought as someone shouts from near the cockpit, “Hey, Clarke!”

“Wells!” The sight of the boy brings warmth to her. While she has never been a fan of Jaha at all, his son made the awkward dinners between their parents easier on her. “I didn’t know you were onboard.” She had been so focused on drinking and partying for these last weeks that she hadn’t even registered that if Jaha is the captain, clearly his son would be there too.

“Training with my dad as a first mate,” he says matter-o-factly. Clarke wants to ask him about what happened to his plans of being a cop, wants to say they should catch up, but knows the words will fall flat. “Anyway, I- I could do that. Fake marry you two, I mean.” He hands her a card with a phone number scribbled on it, glancing at Lexa briefly. Clarke takes the card and watches the way he squirms when Lexa stares through his soul - probably offended he didn’t give her a chance to introduce herself. “If captains can’t marry anyone, first mates might be able to. Just- Text me letting me know where and when, okay?”

He trudges back without waiting for an answer. Lexa watches him go and Clarke watches Lexa - there’s something eerie about her, something Clarke can’t put her finger on. She’s been making so many assumptions about Lexa, but that look makes her realize that no, she can’t know any of that. She doesn’t know Lexa at all, but she has to convince her mother they’re getting married.

Her  _ mother _ .

“Well,” Lexa calls her attention with that single word. Clarke snaps out of her reverie and swallows thickly - they’re really going through with this, “I believe we have a lunch date with your mother now.”

Oh,  _ fuck _ .


	4. Chapter 4

**_iv._ **

She feels like a fraud.

Anya said it’d be a fun little mischief she’d be taking part in, but she does not feel like a prankster, helping someone pull a practical joke on her mother. She doesn’t feel like a young carefree girl making the most out of her vacations. She feels like a goddamn charlatan.

Lexa compares her posture with Clarke, painfully aware who’s the really carefree one. While Lexa trudges forward with her back ramrod straight, hands folded behind her back, in an outfit that screams to anyone willing to listen that she’s completely out of place, Clarke all but skips ahead of her, hair waving behind her as the ocean breeze breathes through them, her victorious smile never leaving her face as she chatters.

“Raven and O found a place and even got some flowers. Do you like lilies?” Clarke is tapping away on her phone, half distracted by her friends’ texting, but still narrating it all to her. Lexa frowns in question, that Clarke answers without even looking at her, “Our wedding bouquet. It’s gonna be lilies.”

“Lilies are lovely, Clarke.” Lexa smiles softly and lets her arms fall loosely on her sides, swaying with each step. She can’t quite meet her mother-in-law - the word makes a shiver run down her spine - looking like she’s there to inspect the meat. She tries to rationalize what is this fake wedding and why she’s taking part in this at all, but fails miserable. What she does know, is that Anya could be a fantastic politician if she put her mind to it.

“Do you have a white dress? Or maybe, a white… suit?” Clarke asks but Lexa doesn’t answer, barely registers the question at all. They’re close enough for the back of their hands to touch with their every other step, but Clarke takes her hand in between hers. Slowly, almost as if not to spook her. A gentle touch to her wrist first, then her fingertips run down her palm until she’s intertwining their fingers. “Is this okay?” Clarke murmurs quietly, squeezing her fingers for Lexa to know what she means, “I just thought- you know, so my mom knows right way what we mean to each other.”

That’s a wild thing to say -  _ what we mean to each other _ . They don’t mean anything to each other, Lexa is merely helping her in this absurdity and still trying to convince herself as to why.

“It’s fine,” she says curtly, a lump finding its home in her throat and growing steadily until breathing becomes almost a conscious effort. Lexa hasn’t held anyone’s hand in almost two years and the gesture feels almost too intimate, nearly unbearably so. But she shoves it down and prays to every god she can think of that her hand won’t get clammy, “I’m not sure about a white dress, but I think I can put something together.”

“If you show up in a suit, I’m pretty sure you won’t be getting off marrying me for real - just a heads up,” Clarke says in all seriousness, but Lexa scoffs in amusement. Her phone buzzes again and Lexa is close enough that she sees the picture Octavia has sent her - two white dresses, one held in front of her body, the other on a hanger. “We could go shopping for dresses this afternoon.”

“Isn’t bad luck for the bride to see the dress of her wife-to-be?” Lexa teases with a slight smirk and Clarke giggles in such an adorable way Lexa almost doesn’t regret this.

“The offer still stands,” Clarke says and Lexa nods, acknowledging it. They walk for a while, turning in hallways and going down stairs towards the restaurant in a silence more comfortable than Lexa could’ve anticipated. Clarke breaks the silence as they make their way through the crowded casino, “What about PDA?”

“PDA?” The acronym rolls in her tongue like a foreign threat - it takes her a few moments to remember what it means and she can almost tell for sure her stomach actually drops a few inches, “Is it necessary?”

“I guess just enough to convince my mom, but I was wondering what you’re comfortable with. Hand holding is okay, I assume.” Clarke swings their hands lightly and Lexa nods. A patron nearly bumps into them and Clarke lets go of her hand to wrap her arm around Lexa’s waist, pulling her flush to her. “Is this okay?” Lexa’s takes a sharp intake of breath, but nods, her mouth suddenly too dry to say anything, “I guess that would be enough. Maybe a kiss? I mean, we’ll kiss at the wedding, but maybe- well, whatever is enough to sell this story to her.”

Lexa feels awkward with her arms suddenly tied in front of her by Clarke’s embrace, her left palm holding her right wrist while Clarke casually hooks her thumb on the back pocket of her shorts - definitely not what a couple should look like, “What story are we telling her, exactly?”

Clarke hums in thought, and Lexa doesn’t miss the way her thumb mindlessly strokes the thin fabric of her pocket, “The truth, I guess,” Lexa shifts her eyebrows up, in utter disbelief and Clarke chuckles, “Half truth, anyway. We say we met yesterday, through Anya and Raven, and we fell in love instantly. We had a  _ wild night _ ,” Clarke says with a tone that is impossible to miss the dirty meaning of her words and Lexa can feel her neck growing warm, “and decided our love was too pure to let it go.”

Her last sentence is said in a Disney-like intonation, sounding much more dramatic than the moment called for. Lexa smiles a bit, more to Clarke’s benefit, and shifts in her arms, trying to sneak her arm around Clarke’s waist so they’re a bit more in sync. It feels odd and forced, but the restaurant is just downstairs, they might as well look as  _ couply  _ as possible.”That sounds… hardly believable.”

“That’s the goal,” Clarke winks at Lexa and untangles their limbs, going back to merely holding hands. They’re barely halfway down the stairs when a figure perks up, waving them closer. Lexa can feel Clarke shifting closer almost instantly, leaning in to whisper in her ear, “Ask about Marcus. It’s her boyfriend.”

Lexa gives her a nod and plasters her best politician smile on her face. She knows it’s not genuine, but hardly anyone else can tell. If she snuggles closer to Clarke and presses her nose gently against her cheek, Lexa pretends it’s all for show.

“Show time,” Clarke whispers way too excitedly and Lexa feels something growing lighter inside her. “Mom, hey,” Clarke half hugs her mom, one arm going around her shoulders, the other stretched behind her, still holding on to Lexa’s. She steps back and Lexa watches the way Abby’s eyes flutter to their joined hands then back at her daughter, “I’d like you to meet Lexa.” To her credit, Abby’s face light up at the prospect of meeting a friend of her daughter’s - or, more likely, a hookup that has lasted enough for Clarke to introduce to her mom. “My fiancée.”

Abby’s face goes pale, her jaw slacked, the ghost of her smile haunting the stunned face. Before she has time to take her hand away, Lexa reaches for it and shakes it, her firm grasp contrasting wildly with Abby’s limp hand, “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Mrs. Griffin.” Lexa makes sure to add the formal honorific, as if she’s a teenage asking Abby’s permission to take Clarke to the winter ball, “I’ve heard a lot about you already and I can’t wait to hear much more.” Lexa reaches for Abby’s half outstretched hand before she can take it back, her firm shake contrasting wildly with the limp hand in hers. “Will Marcus be joining us? I’d love to meet everyone.”

“Clarke…” Abby’s choked voice faces into nothingness with how intense her shock had been, and she barely finds it in her to squeak out a faint “ _ what? _ ”

“My fiancée, mom,” Clarke says, like it’s the most obvious conclusion anyone with eyes could take from this scene. Lexa feels bad for Abby, her eyes darting in between the both of them, trying to find an explanation that makes sense. “We met yesterday, Raven introduced us and we just knew we were right for each other,” Clarke lets go of her hand and wraps both her arms around Lexa’s waist, who only just manages to sets her hands on top of Clarke’s, hoping it doesn’t look awkward. “The first mate agreed to marry us, the wedding is today at six!” Clarke gazes up, an amused smile on her lips, and Lexa nearly falters when she looks down and meets Clarke’s blue eyes, so close and so strikingly clear she could count each and every golden speckle, ”We couldn’t ask for anything more romantic than a wedding at sunset.”

“Is this a joke?” Abby doesn’t sound convinced, which half surprises Lexa. If Clarke really is as reckless as she has been painted to be added with how convincing she’s playing the part, it’s more than believable.

Clarke straightens up, wraps her arms more firmly around Lexa’s and frowns, wearing a determined expression, “No, I’m dead serious. We’re getting married, mom.”

Deciding to play her part as convincingly as Clarke’s, Lexa jumps in, her smile still stuck in her lips. She’s been so used to wearing fake smiles she can hardly feel her cheeks hurting anymore, “I’m heading to Australia as well, so we decided to get our lives started as soon as possible.” She stops for a moment, looking down at Clarke’s amused face before turning to Abby and adding, “I’ve talked to a few brokers already, and we got ourselves a house in Melbourne.”

“It’s huge, mom. Perfect for the dogs we’re gonna get,” Clarke plays along and Lexa can’t quite keep her mind from wondering what that house would be like - the open veranda looking out a backyard where their dogs are free to run around. Maybe a labrador and a dalmatian for now, then get a German shepherd. Lexa blinks the fantasy away, “Although, we should make sure they’re the friendliest ones. You know, for the babies.”

It takes a heartbeat for Lexa to catch up with the mental image of toddlers napping on top of their dalmatian. “Oh, I can’t wait for us to have babies.” Lexa mumbles, the idea of children giving her a kind of ache she hasn’t felt in a while.

Abby clearly seems to be having much more trouble accepting it all, “What- Babies? And Melbourne?” She turns to Clarke, pure and unadulterated rage making her light eyes darken and glint, “Your internship is in Sidney.”

“Oh, right, I’m not doing that anymore, actually. I’ve emailed the school about quitting already, I’ll work something else when we get to Melbourne.” Clarke says in a calm tone, snuggling closer to Lexa, as if she hasn’t been crushing her mother’s hopes and dreams all at once. Lexa can’t help feel sorry for the woman, nearly wanting to tell her the truth, but knowing she’s in too deep to go back now.

Why did she have to mention getting a  _ house _ ?

“You cannot be serious. There’s no way you’re going through with this,” Abby repeats the one thing she’s been able to utter in this five minute conversation - denial, “You met this woman  _ yesterday _ , you can’t quit your entire life for someone you know less than a full day.” Clarke places a kiss on Lexa’s collarbone, just under her jacket’s collar, paying no attention to her mother’s clear and deserving freak out. Lexa isn’t all that far from freaking out as well. “You can’t do this, you cannot be  _ this _ stupid.”

“Well, call me a fool in love,” Clarke bats her eyelashes and smile such a pure smile even Lexa starts to believe it.

Lexa finds her voice before Abby does, “I am sorry this took you by surprise, Abby. Can I call you Abby?” Trying to be civil doesn’t earn her much besides a fuming glare from her future mother-in-law. It amuses her and brings back sweet memories that have grown bitter with the years. She pushes herself, pretending there’s someone else holding her, someone else listening, “But I assure you no one will ever take better care of your daughter than I will. Our love is something you  _ know _ in your gut, even if no one else can tell.”

Abby thoroughly ignores Lexa, turning to Clarke with a stern face, her top lip curving up, “Your father would never approve of this.”

“Yeah, it’s a shame he isn’t here to walk me down the aisle,” Clarke’s voice is so bitter Lexa has trouble imagining it’s a divorce or some other misunderstanding that has Abby here with her new boyfriend and not her husband, but she doesn’t pry. Clarke looks at her, a smile quickly replacing her frown. “Maybe we could ask those frat boys we met at the party.”

Lexa nods at the figurative light bulb blinking over of Clarke’s head, matching her smile with one of her own, “Oh, yeah, Chad would be good arm candy.”

“Chad is gonna be perfect,” Clarke squeal, reaching up to tuck a rogue strand of hair behind Lexa’s ear. It’s a small gesture, almost nothing, really. But the simplicity of it puts it all together incredibly well. Then Clarke turns to her mom, a defying look burning in her eyes as she tilts her chin up, “Unless Marcus would be willing to walk me down the aisle.”

“You are unbelievable, Clarke,” Abby spits at her daughter and Lexa has a ridiculous urge to defend Clarke. But before she can even think about anything, Abby is gathering her things from the table set for two, tripping over her own words. “I- I can’t be near you right now. I just hope you come to your senses before you do something you can’t repair.” With a final hard look at both of them and how they fit together, Abby storms off, heading for the checkout counter for them to add the single glass of wine to her tab.

“Wedding at six, mom!” Clarke shouts after her, then turns fully to Lexa, letting out an amused laughter, “Who’s Chad?”

Lexa adjusts herself in Clarke’s arms until they’re facing each other, Clarke’s arms around her waist, Lexa’s hand resting lightly on her upper arms. She shrugs, tilting her head to the side as she searches Abby in the small crowd, “I don’t know, you say frat boy, I think Chad and Bryce and Tanner. Frat boy sounding names.”

“Nice touch,” Clarke hums as if she’s impressed. Lexa doesn’t answer anything, her eyes glued to Abby’s, who finds them easily. “Is she looking at us?” Lexa nods once, refusing to break her gaze from Abby. If looks could kill, Lexa’s parents would be receiving a very unfortunate call right this moment. “Can I kiss you?”

The question takes Lexa aback and she completely forgets about the woman whose hate list she just made as she answers, “Sure.” She tries to sound nonchalant about it, but Lexa could hear her own voice catching on her throat. Even if it’s just for show, it’s been awhile since she kissed anyone.

Clarke reaches one hand up to grasp at her chin, tilting her head in the right angle as she pulls at her waist, making Lexa all but tumble forward. Her grip on Clarke’s arms tighten when they’re breathing the same air, almost no space in between them. Lexa leans in first, capturing Clarke’s lips in between hers, swallowing Clarke’s tiny sigh. Clarke presses back, sucking lightly at Lexa’s bottom lip. It must have been way too long since she kissed someone and her body forgot what it was, what’s the only explanation for how hard her heart is beating.

They break the kiss as they part for air and Lexa bumps their noses together, more because she nearly loses her balance than to be cute. Lexa is about to kiss her again when Clarke draws back, smiling, “Wanna go get some food? I can’t handle wedding prep on an empty stomach.”

Lexa can only nod and follow along.


	5. Chapter 5

**_v._ **

Fidgeting from where she sits cross legged on her bed earns Clarke a bobby pin poking the base of her neck hard enough to make her wince and a stern look from Raven.

She feels too pampered, sitting in an honest to God fluffy robe with Octavia working her hair into a hairdo that requires three low buns and more hairpins than she’d know what to do with and Raven following an Youtube tutorial for her summer bridal look makeup. It does involve a whole lot more golden and pink eyeshadow than Clarke is comfortable with, but she knows better than to whine and think she has any saying in this wedding. 

If it were up to her, she’d gone with a side braid her mom taught her as a kid and a light layer of mascara. But Octavia and Raven had been adamant in not letting her walk down the while looking like a homeless person - which is a nudge past exaggeration, but she let it pass. The only thing she does love is the dress they picked for her, currently waiting for her on a hanger. The white dress ends mid thigh, hardly conservative, but it’s covered with a lacy flowered pattern that makes up for it, making it more wedding appropriate. The boat neckline feels slightly constricting after two entire weeks of wearing hardly anything but bikini tops, but the back opens so beautifully that she finds the balance makes it all fit together nicely.

Clarke lets her mind wander as Octavia finishes pinning her hair into place. Closing her eyes and sitting quietly as Raven brushes different types of powder onto her face, Clarke imagines what the ballroom they found will be looking like. They haven’t let her take a look beforehand, claiming she had a lot to go - which ended up being soaked in a bath for forty minutes with one too many bath bombs dropped into it. She lets her mind comes up with outfits for Lexa. She had said she wouldn’t be wearing a dress and Clarke thinks she’ll show up in a dressy blouse and pencil skirt, but she’s secretly hoping for a suit.

A chuckle ripples through her as she realizes how excited she is for this fake wedding. And, if she’s being honest with herself, how much she wants to kiss Lexa again.

“If you don’t stay still, I  _ will _ poke your eyeball with a brush filled with eyeshadow and it won’t be an accident,” Raven warns her, aggressively pointing a brush at her, and Clarke knows without a doubt she’d do that. And absolutely make her walk down the aisle with a glittery eye festering in infection.

They hardly slept last night, using all their energy and the ship’s twenty four hour services to organize this wedding. They must have had at least some fun doing it, since they refused Clarke’s help any time she offered it, but for her own sake, she decides to let them both work peacefully.

Octavia gives final touches on her hair, pulling a strand and tucking another, and sprays her hair until the three of them are engulfed in a cloud of hair product. Clarke is pretty sure she’ll have to soak it for an hour to get it all to untangle enough so she can comb through. When Octavia announces she’s gonna change into her bridesmaid dress - apparently, they both had gone shopping with Anya and got themselves matching dresses, all peach colored - and Raven takes the brush from her eyelid for a moment, Clarke crinkles her nose as she speaks, “She kissed me.”

“Yeah, you’ve told us,” Octavia struggles to get the words out and Clarke can only imagine her trying to zip her dress up without pulling out a muscle. She keeps her eyes dutifully closed, really not wanting another killer glare from Raven, “Like, a million times or so.”

“From what I gathered, there wasn’t even tongue. What’s the big deal?” Raven blows softly on her face before spraying something Clarke hasn’t really used before - it might be setting spray, it might be perfume, she can’t quite tell. “You’re all done.”

“I mean,  _ Lexa _ kissed  _ me _ . As in, she leaned in before I did. I was going for a show, but it felt… I don’t know, it felt like a real first kiss,” Clarke says in one breath as she gets up from bed. She tries to go to the mirror to get a look at what they’ve been working on for the past half hour, but has her dress shoved on her chest instead, Raven ordering her to get dressed.

Clarke tosses her robe on the bed and pulls the dress over her head, careful not to mess up her makeup or hairdo - she wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of Raven’s or Octavia’s rage. She decides to forego a bra, the backless dress not really allowing one, and reaches under the bed for her white pumps.

“Maybe she’s into you, then,” Octavia says in a nonchalant tone as she hooks her earrings in place, “You’re hot, she’s hot, you two were meant to hook up at some point. I mean, come on.” Octavia makes grabby hands to her while Raven shouts her agreements from the bathroom, “Go see our masterpiece. Go, go, go.”

Smiling at Octavia’s excitement, Clarke walks towards the body length mirror she has on the back of her closet. Her reflection takes her aback for a moment. She hadn’t expected to look so…  _ ethereal _ , almost. Although the dress is hardly modest, the neckline barely shows her collarbones and it matches the tone of her makeup. She inches forward to see the sharp eyeliner framing her eyes, the eyeshadow flowing from gold to soft pink effortlessly, the nude lipstick keeping it all soft. Clarke turns to her side and glances at her hair, trying to see as much as she can from the odd angle. The hairpins form something akin to a laurel, golden leaves shining against her blonde hair right above the low buns. Her back is naked and her skin all but glows after the weeks of daily sunbathing.

Clarke knows she looks good, but she  _ feels _ beautiful.

She doesn’t realize she’d been staring at each detail of her dress and hair until Raven comes in and pulls her by the arm. “Time to meet your bride, lover girl,” Raven all but drags Clarke out of her cabin, and both she and Octavia have to hurry along to catch up with Raven. For someone who wears heels only when wearing her Doc Martens isn’t acceptable in the slightest, she really knows how to get fucking going in her five inches.

Focusing on not leaving her heels behind helps Clarke keep her mind in the present - one foot after the other, it’s simple and easy and she does it all the time, there’s no reason for her to forget that now. She wants to ask the ridiculous questions burning in her chest, all but falling from the tip of her tongue already -  _ has Anya sent any pictures of Lexa, is her mother even attending the wedding, have they invited anyone any all, does she look pretty, will there be food and music, who has their wedding rings? _

Instead, she keeps her mouth shut - mainly to keep her from giving her best friends enough teasing material to last them a decade, but her pursed lips help keeping her nausea at bay. Clarke is either excited or terrified and she can’t tell which.

Raven pulls her by the arm, their pace quickening when her phone pings with a message from an apparently very pissed Anya, while Octavia tries to finish putting her bouquet together. At least, Clarke can blame their almost sprint for how breathless she feels. The double door come into view at the same time Octavia hands her the bouquet and Clarke glances down at the dozen or so lilies being held together by golden strings going around the stems.

She wants it to be real.

It hits Clarke like a punch - she wants this wedding to be real.

Maybe not exactly with Lexa as her bride. As attractive as the future mayor is with her demanding glare that would get Clarke to do virtually anything and her legs that seem to go on for days, they have only met the night before. But Clarke wants a wedding at sea, the ocean bearing witness to their happiness as her family and friends join them in it. A familiar invisible hand squeezes her heart until she can’t breathe and she remembers Finn and how beautiful he looked in his suit and tie as they closed his casket - the only image of him in formal wear she’ll ever have.

Clarke has to work her jaw shut until the stubborn tears get all but shoved back into its ducts as Anya marches rather than walks out of the double doors, heading towards them with fire in her eyes. “Where the  _ fuck _ have you been?” she spits at Clarke, her tone akin to a mother’s that would slap her over the head to prove how mad she was - Clarke is glad she doesn’t do this because she might have an entire can of hairspray on her hair, but she can’t be sure about how steady it ready it. Anya takes Raven in with a hungry gaze and leans in for a quick kiss and a praising whisper, making Clarke glad for the split second she has to put herself together. “Lexa is planning your murder as we speak,” Anya half yells through gritted teeth at her, “I’m supposed to haunt you down and throw you overboard for standing her up. I have a whole speech ready for how you  _ accidentally _ fell over and that’s why you didn’t show up.”

“Standing her up?” Clarke repeats in surprise, barely having time to gather herself up before Anya strides towards the doors, leaving them to catch up with her.  _ How late are they? _ Clarke reaches for Anya’s wrist, barely registering her sharp suit as she glances at the time on her watch. Fear floors her - either at the thought of Lexa leaving her alone to explain to what she imagines will be a small crowd that she won’t be getting married anymore or that she might have hurt Lexa, she can’t quite tell. Her eyes take a moment to focus, her heart beating way too fast as she catches the time. She sighs in relief, “I’m  _ ten minutes _ late. That’s hardly late at all.”

Anya scoffs, not dignifying herself to even look at Clarke, “You clearly don’t know your wife.” Clarke frowns as she’s all but manhandled by Anya, who pushes and pull them until they’re in the right formation. Anya isn’t wrong, Clarke has known Lexa for all of twenty hours so  _ excuse you me if I didn’t know she’s British, _ “Lexa prizes punctuality above almost everything else. She’s been waiting for you for almost half an hour, now you wait back and you two, get your pretty asses moving.”

Taking a full step back until she’s hidden from the curious glances that dart back when Anya opens the double doors, Clarke realizes she’s terrified - mostly of Anya, knowing fully well she will murder her and dispose the body if she ever screws Lexa over, but the fear of ruining this fake wedding also runs deep in her veins. Raven and Octavia hurry down the aisle, as fast as the low tempo song will allow them, and Anya walks on the outside of the neatly organized rows of chairs to stay beside Lexa. Clarke watches Lexa’s face relaxing slightly as Anya whispers something in her ear and she breathes a little easier.

Clarke leans in slightly as she waits for the bridal march to start playing, giving her cue to walk in. She clutches her bouquet in her hands and smiles at the simple decoration, seeing Raven’s touch in the way lilies are wrapped around tulle on the chairs and imagining Octavia grunting as she tries to get the flowers on the arch upfront without messing up the draping. 

A quick glance at the guests make her smile grow with fond appreciation for how much effort her friends put into this. She sees Monty wearing a tie and Jasper sitting with her arm around Maya’s shoulders - both guys could make moonshine out of  _ nothing _ , and if that doesn’t mean instant friendship, Clarke doesn’t know what could. She finds Lincoln in the crowd, looking very sharp in his suit and a distant cry from the guy wearing flowery shorts while shadowing Octavia while they trained boxing moves. Bellamy is sitting in the front row, looking more choked up than Clarke thought he had in him, with Murphy on his side and Nathan holding hands with Myles, probably thinking about pulling the same thing. Harper and Fox sit a few rows back, and Clarke recognizes a few faces she met at parties in the last few weeks but forgot to remember their names.

Finally, she catches her mother’s stiff posture, head held up so high she could swear a few strings were pulling it up, staring straight ahead and sitting beside Marcus, who turns back to find her. Before Clarke can catch his eyes, knowing she’ll find nothing but warmth and support in them, the bridal march starts and she’s walking down the aisle.

She takes measured steps towards the arch where Lexa is waiting for her, focusing her eyes on Wells for a moment, looking too stiff and proud on his first mate uniform, before letting her eyes drift to her bride. Clarke almost trips over her own feet when she takes Lexa in, her hands folded behind her back, her eyes glued to Clarke. She can feel all eyes on her - as long as they can tell, this is the happiest day of her life - but she can’t take her eyes off Lexa.

Lexa looks breathtaking, dressed all in white, a faint smile in her lips meant only for Clarke. She isn’t wearing a suit like Clarke had secretly hoped for, but her jumpsuit makes Clarke’s heart beat that much fast. Her legs look a mile long and her while pumps almost matches Clarke’s. It makes her smile as she takes in how the neckline makes justice to her cleavage, the lace covering the strap top clinging to her body beautifully. Clarke could believe Lexa spent days searching for the perfect piece, obsessing over every detail that seemed make-it-or-break-it in the moment. But what made it all come together, giving Lexa an ethereal look that all brides have, is her hair - cascading over one shoulder, each strand curled to precision, a white gold hairpin keeping it all in place.

In that moment, Clarke can swear she feels love.

When Clarke is less than four steps away from the makeshift altar, Lexa reaches out her hand for Clarke to hold. She places her hand on the outstretched palm and lets herself be pulled closer, guided by Lexa’s warm eyes. She feels someone tugging at her bouquet and she lets it go easily, turning to face Lexa.

“You look beautiful,” Clarke whispers only loud enough for Lexa to hear and the words surprise even herself. She meant to apologize for being late, to say she didn’t even realize they were late to begin with or she’d hurried up - but seeing Lexa waiting for her in that outfit made all thoughts drain from her brain, only one remaining. She’d be a lucky lady to get to have Lexa all to herself.

Their hands link together like two brides would and it feels oddly natural, Lexa’s smile to her looks oddly genuine, her heartbeat sounding oddly like Lexa’s name. “So do you,” Lexa nods, as if she’s agreeing with herself, “You make a gorgeous bride.”

“All yours,” she says in a breath, winking at Lexa only to see her blush. Wells clears his throat, having fumbled with his papers as long as he could to let them have this moment, and calls their attention. From the corner of her eye, Clarke sees everyone settling down, getting ready for the ceremony. She risks a glance towards her mother, searching aimlessly until she finds her on the second row - Abby sits ramrod straight, hands folded on her lap, eyes drifting just past her and focusing on Wells’ shoulder instead. When she finally does catch her eyes, Clarke smiles happily and gets back little more than a nod and a tight lipped grimace - a brutal difference from Kane’s excitement.

She’s in so much trouble once she comes clear to them.

Clarke has half a mind to propose to Lexa they just pretend to be married for the year she stays in Australia, but her thoughts are interrupted by Wells voice. “Family and friends, guests, welcome to the wedding ceremony of Clarke and Lexa. They’re both very thankful you are all here to celebrate this union with them, before they embark in the greatest adventure they could ever imagine,” he gestures widely towards them, his voice soothing and deep, as if he’s been doing this all his life, “They found love in this very ship, in a whisper of destiny that bonds them together. In this vessel floating away in the middle of the ocean, Clarke and Lexa found in each other the safe haven they’ve been looking for all their lives.” He sounds so sure of his words that Clarke almost starts to believe him. She squeezes Lexa’s hands softly and meets her eyes, both of them smiling like this is much more than a mere prank, “Here, you’ll all bear witness to their love and the promises they make to each other. First, let us listen to a reading chosen by the couple.”

Clarke quirks her eyebrow in a silent question to Lexa, which earns her a discreet shake of her head. She’s about to lean in and tell Wells that no, they do not have a reading, they didn’t have time to find that in the last three hours since they last saw him, and that he can just skip over that part and go ahead when she sees Octavia walking up to stand beside Wells, a folder in her hands and a smirk in her lips.

Octavia opens her folder as she cleans her throat very dramatically and starts reading about love and commitment, about growing old in the same house their children take their first steps. It’s something Clarke has never heard before, not once in the hundreds of weddings she’s probably attended in her life. It rings true and it carves deep into what Clarke wants love to be.

Before Octavia finishes her reading, Clarke realizes - not without a slight pang of embarrassment - that she’s wrapped her arms around Lexa’s waist, leaning her chin on her shoulder as they both listen attentively. Clarke doesn’t even try to explain herself to Lexa - she’s always been prone to touch everyone as she talks and gestures, and hearing her best friend reading romantic shit makes her a cuddler. That’s all. And she’s so far from having Octavia do this in her actual real wedding that this pretend scene makes her swoon.

Lexa shifts in her arms once Octavia returns to her seat and Clarke lets go of her, trailing her fingertips down her forearm until they’re holding hands again, both of them facing forward now. Clarke sneaks a glance at Lexa, only to find her gingerly wiping a tear from the corner of her eye - that single moment makes Lexa look so real,  _ feel _ so human that Clarke averts her eyes. She nods a thank you to Octavia - it was a simple gesture that made this wedding feel that much real.

They turn towards each other at Wells’ instruction and link their hands again, Clarke wrinkling her nose to Lexa in an attempt to make her feel as comfortable as she could under the spotlight. 

It’s time for the vows.


	6. Chapter 6

**_vi._ **

A smile sneaks its way to her lips when Clarke crinkles her nose - it’s silly and heartwarming to know it’s meant only for her.

Lexa works their hands together until their fingers are intertwined, not even bothering to take her eyes off Clarke to look at the crowd of unfamiliar faces - beside Anya, the only person she even knows the name is Abby and Clarke’s mother looks anything but happy to see them here. And Lexa can’t quite keep her focus on Clarke either, not after they all but snuggled in front of fifty people. 

It felt good - this is what scares her. She spent so many years mastering the fine art of being lonely and not letting it show that she forgot what it feels like to simply be held. Sure, her eventual one night stand cures her loneliness for a night, soothes it for a few weeks after, but there’s nothing quite like being held just by the sake of it. So no, she can’t keep looking at Clarke and imagining what it’d feel like to have her arms around her for an entire night.

Instead, she focuses on Wells and the blatant lie she’s about to convince everyone is true. Wells thanks Octavia for the beautiful reading - it really was beautiful, at least the part Lexa had managed to listen - and clears his throat once more, “Clarke and Lexa, being sure that it is your intention to be married to each other, I now ask you to declare your marriage vows.”

Lexa turns to face Clarke, only to find faint panic in her eyes. Lexa gently squeezes her hands, “I’ll go first.” It’s not like she had a lot of time to work on her vows, to actually pour her heart into each word like she’d do if this were real, but Anya assured her it all sounded genuine, so Lexa takes a deep breath and begins, “My grandparents got married within two weeks of knowing each other. I always thought it was too fast, you can’t know you want to spend the rest of your life with someone in such little time.” Clarke’s panic grows and Lexa realizes how it must sound like she’s bailing. But Lexa presses on, “That was, until I met you. I knew within two hours that no one else would do.” She takes a step forward, bringing them only an inch closer, but it’s enough for Clarke to soften and give her a small smile. “I swear fealty to you, Clarke. I promise to treat your need as my own, your people as my people,” if her voice shakes with the weight of those words she’s throwing to the wind, Lexa brushes it off as a good detail to add for show. Lexa wants to glance at her mother-in-law, almost to let her know that last bit was meant for her, to say that she’ll treat her as family and she should get ready to do the same. But she can’t take her eyes off Clarke’s, holding her close like she’s a mere celestial body orbiting a star, “I pledge you my love, for as long as I live. What I possess in this world, I give to you. I will keep you and hold you, comfort and tend you, protect you and shelter you, for all the days of my life.”

Before Lexa can breathe out her relief of having gotten it all out without breaking into laughter or tears, lips crash against hers. It takes her a moment to realize Clarke is kissing her, a hand wrapped around her waist, the other tentatively gripping her jaw. Lexa smiles in amusement as she kisses back, reaching for Clarke’s waist before Wells clears his throat in a way that couldn’t be considered subtle at all.

“You usually don’t do that until both have said their vows, you know?” Wells says in a stage whisper, laughter erupting from the crowd before them. Lexa hides her face on Clarke’s shoulder for a moment before straightening up, struggling to keep her laughter to a minimum when she sees her bride flushing with embarrassment. “Would you like to say them now?”

Clarke rolls her eyes playfully at him and Lexa wishes she’d have the time to learn what happened between them - they’re clearly friends, yet Clarke didn’t know he was a part of the crew for two entire weeks. Clarke reaches for her hands again, bringing both to her lips so she could kiss her knuckles, and Lexa is brought back to the bubble they managed to create around them. 

For a moment, Clarke only stares at Lexa. Then she brings their joined hands to her chest, keeping them close to her heart as she says, “I promise to always be your biggest fan and your partner in crime.” Lexa swallows thickly past the lump slowly but steadily growing in her throat. Clarke’s eyes are set on hers and Lexa can’t even blink under the intensity of her gaze, “I promise to create and support a family with you, in a household filled with laughter, patience, understanding, and love.” She smiles as she remembers all the dogs they’re going to adopt and the ten children they’ll have - as long as Clarke’s mom knows, anyway. It sparks an ache inside of her, because Lexa realizes she wants this. “I vow not just to grow old together, but to grow together.” Maybe not Clarke, maybe not the woman she’s known for less than a day, but she wants this love, this future, this hope. “I will love you faithfully through the difficult and the easy. What may come, I will always be there, each one believing that our love never dies.”

_ Our love _ . The words snap Lexa out of her reverie - this is an  _ act _ , it isn’t real, she isn’t in love with this woman. But the ache inside of her feels real, feels like anything but an act.

Lexa caves and grips Clarke’s hands a little bit tighter. She brings them to her lips and presses her lips to the back of her hand, much like Clarke had done, before leaning in to kiss her cheek. 

Wells clears his throat yet again, “The rings?” Anya is the one to reach over and hand him a pouch with two wedding bands in them. Lexa had dived into her jewelry box, throwing whatever Anya had packed into the mix, until she found anything resembling wedding bands.

They had settled for a braided ring with a raw diamond adorning it that Anya had bought during the time she was  _ really _ into celtic traditions and an engraved rose gold her mother had gotten her after graduation. Lexa picked up the braided one and slipped it into Clarke’s ring finger - even the mere gesture of slipping the ring in place made butterflies violently flap their wings in Lexa’s stomach, she wants this. Clarke is a beam of light as she does the same, her grin doing nothing to settle the swarm within her.

Wells looks in between them as they hold hands again and Lexa can  _ swear _ she sees the glint of tears in his eyes as he speaks, “By the power invested in me, I declare you… wife and… wife. Lawfully married.” Light chuckle spreads across the crowd with his choice of words, and his dark complexion gets a beautiful flush to it. “You  _ now _ may kiss your bride.”

Clarke chuckles alongside with their guests and leans in to kiss Lexa, both her hands coming up to hold her face. Lexa lets herself be kissed as she wraps her arms around Clarke’s waist and pulling her flushed against her, enjoying the softness of their lips brushing together, pressing back ever so slightly.

They break apart when Lexa hears loud yells and clapping - apparently, they have gotten overboard with the gentle kissing that celebrates their union. Anya nudges Lexa to give her bouquet back and Clarke gets hers from Raven as well so they can walk down the aisle holding them. Lexa almost drops hers when Clarke holds her free hand and presses a kiss to her neck before pulling her along the narrow space, their bodies touching everywhere as the guests toss rice at them in a symbol of their best wishes and good luck.

When they finally emerge past the double doors, Lexa feels breathless - from laughter, from the ache in her chest, from looking at Clarke shining so bright. Raven and Octavia had explicitly told them to stay outside until one of them came to pick them up for the first dance, so they stand in the hallway, trying to gather their bearings. 

“You- you have rice on your hair,” Lexa stutters out, not sure what to do now that they’re alone again. Clarke does have rice stuck in her hairdo and Lexa has to stop herself from reaching out to brush it off - they don’t have to act in love when they’re alone.

“Your first words into our married life,” Clarke teases and laughs as she shakes her head like a goddamn dog, sprinkling rice on the floor. Lexa assumes newlyweds would take this time to tell each other everything they couldn’t fit into their vows, to kiss how they really want to without having eyes on them, to hold their loved one for a moment and forget about anything else. But she doesn’t quite understand what she’s supposed to do, so she claps her hands together behind her back, holding her flowers out of her own view, and watches Clarke try to get her hair clean. When she’s done, Clarke looks at her and snorts, “Oh my  _ god _ , so do you. Like, a lot.”

Before Lexa has the mind to reach for her hair to shake the rice away, Clarke is in her personal space, her fingers in her hair, picking out the rice from her curls. She understands it’s harder to do that when she can’t really allow herself to mess up her hairdo, but the way Clarke grunts when she loses a battle against the rice makes Lexa have to consciously force herself to keep her hands to herself. It doesn’t help that Clarke rises to her tiptoes to check the top of her head and brings her cleavage straight to Lexa’s face.

Lexa is nearly breaking her own teeth from gritting her jaw too tight when the double doors open and Raven peeks through the crack, “Okay, love doves, we’re ready for you.” Swaying the doors open, Raven makes a gesture for them to be quick and disappears behind the drapes separating the part they got married in to the part their party will be hosted.

It all makes Lexa’s heart spin.

Clarke holds out her hand for Lexa to take, which she does without a second thought, “Ready for our first dance as newlyweds?” Her voice is teasing when she raises her eyebrows in question, swinging their hands. Lexa clutches her bouquet harder.

Nodding once, Lexa points to the room they’re about to enter with their joined hands, “Lead the way, my lady.” It’s supposed to be teasing as well, but it comes out softer than she had intended. Clarke gives her a smile and does lead the way through the double doors.

The room flares up in cheers as they walk in, their flowers being taken from them once again. Lexa can feel every pair of eyes burning into her skin - of course they’d stare at the happy couple, about to dance for the first time, entering their married life. But it feels heavy and suffocating. Clarke grips her hand tighter and lifts them both up in a similar cheer as they walk to the center of the room, and Lexa is sure she’s gonna be sick.

Everyone quiets down a moment after and Lexa finds Clarke’s eyes as they settle for the dance - they’re shining, they’re always shining. Her hand falls to the small of Clarke’s back and find its home there, as if they’ve been doing this for years, as if that’s how she’s meant to be. Clarke settles her free hand on her ribs and brings their joined hands to rest on her chest, trapping them in between both of theirs as they get closer, whatever space between them gone.

It’s too intimate to stand like this in a room full of people.

The first notes drift towards them and Lexa sneak a glance towards where it’s coming from - Wells is not only the officiant of this wedding, but also the DJ. She smiles and drifts back to Clarke, touching their foreheads together as they sway from one side to the other. Lexa closes her eyes, too close to Clarke for her to keep them open without it being awkward or straining them, and Clarke does the same. She can tell they look like a couple and her throat closes.

Her knees almost give up when she hears the first words for their song.  _ Wise men say only fools rush in, but I can't help falling in love with you. _ Air leaves her lungs as she remembers other hands wrapped around hers, a different cadence to the breath hitting her cheek as they sway together wearing panties and t-shirts in a candle lit apartment.  _ Shall I stay? Would it be a sin if I can't help falling in love with you? _

“I feel like throwing up,” a voice she doesn’t recognize for a moment filters into her memories, pulling her back. Lexa breathes Clarke in, grounding herself back to the present. She hums in lieu of an answer - she feels like throwing up too. She wraps her arm around Clarke’s waist to bring her closer, flush against her body, and relishes in the soft gasp Clarke lets out. At least she’s not the only one affected by this. When Clarke speaks again, her voice is barely there, “Can I kiss you?”

“I’m your wife, Clarke. I guess it’s appropriate for you to kiss me at our wedding,” Lexa says in a teasing voice, trying to smirk but getting only a sincere smile to her lips. Her heart rate skyrockets when Clarke leans in and closes the half inch that was keeping their apart. The worst part is that she  _ knows _ Clarke can feel it in her lips even, in the place where their hands rest, in every part of her. But Lexa kisses Clarke back with all she has, wraps her lips around her bottom one, pressing softly until the momentum forces her to arch her back. She hears a low whistle, a few claps here and there, and it makes her smile into the kiss. It only widens when she realizes Clarke is smiling too

_ Like a river flows surely to the sea, darling, so it goes - some things are meant to be. _

They break apart with smiles on their lips still. Clarke rests her chin on Lexa’s shoulder, letting her take the lead for the one part where the song picks up, swaying them in a circle and back, before settling to their gentle rhythm again.

Clarke runs her hand up Lexa’s back until she can fit it under her chin, turning her face to whisper on Lexa’s ear, “It was a nice touch. What you said in your vows, about your grandparents also getting married too quick.”

“It’s all true,” Lexa breathes out as she settles against the crook of Clarke’s neck. She hopes her hand isn’t clammy. She hasn’t held hands with anyone in so long she doesn’t quite know she can go an entire song without her own system trying to sabotage her. It takes her a moment as she adjusts her grip on Clarke’s hand to realize how her answer must have sounded, “The- the part about my grandparents, I mean. They really did get married within two weeks.”

“Really? That’s wild,” Clarke answers in a chuckle, pressing a kiss to her shoulder and Lexa can only pray that Clarke doesn’t notice - or at least, doesn’t comment on - how goosebumps prickle her entire arm at the gesture.

“Your vows were beautiful, Clarke. Someone will be very lucky to have you as their wife,” the words spill from her lips and Lexa doesn’t take them back. She can appreciate a well written piece without it meaning anything personal to her.

Clarke snorts lightly and lifts her head, searching for Lexa. She gives her a kiss, only lips pressing gently against lips, before leaning their foreheads together like they were a moment before, “I may have copied them from the internet.”

“You may have,” Lexa says and smiles, closing her eyes again as she realizes how close they are. She can’t help but imagine Clarke typing in “beautiful wedding vows” on Google and anxiously going through the results she got. When she speaks again, her lips all but brush against Clarke’s, “Well, regardless. They will be lucky to have you.”

_ Take my hand, take my whole life, too. For I can't help falling in love with you. _

The song comes to an end and they break apart, holding their hands in between them for a moment longer before letting go. The room erupts in cheers and excited clapping and for a moment it’s so noisy they can barely believe there are little more than fifty people in there. Lexa accepts the congratulations and good luck wishes from people she doesn’t know and won’t ever get to, hugging the odd fellow who’s been sipping on liquor since morning and get a little too affectionate. 

Clarke stays beside her, reaching for her waist or arm every now and then, making sure they don’t drift away for too long - Lexa could get used to it. The last ones to come wish them well are the ones who know they won’t be needing it. Anya calls her  _ kiddo  _ one too many times, making it clear she’s had more than her share of champagne. Raven hugs them both at once, half whispering, half shouting praises about how good they both look and how beautiful everything is and how they’re going to get  _ super _ drunk. Octavia is only a notch more put together, hugging Clarke with fervor first, then awkwardly hugging Lexa.

Everything feels odd, everything feels right.

A waiter - a  _ waiter _ , they really had gone all out in this - gets near them once everyone cleared out and offers them champagne. Clarke picks up two flutes and Lexa half wants to tell her she’ll be drinking the both of them, but accepts the one that’s handed to her, “Are you ready to come clear with my mom?”

“No. I don’t know why I got into this in the first place,” the sincerity in her voice shocks her, but it does earn her a belly laughter from Clarke. She can imagine Clarke in Australia, sprawled on the beach, the sun kissing her skin like an old lover, a drink in one hand and a book in the other. She isn’t even sure if her wife does like to read for fun, if she’s being honest.

Clarke tips her flute to Lexa, “For the free booze.”

“I don’t drink.” Lexa denies and takes her own flute to her lips, taking the smallest of sips and feeling the bubbles popping in a weird way as they go down her throat. She knows the appeal, she’s been attracted to it before, but she can’t stomach it anymore. She remembers cheap cider and cheaper beer, stares down at her champagne, gripping it harder if only to have something to hold on to as the sudden ache in her chest subsides.

“Oh, you will, after whatever she’s got in store for us,” Clarke says in an almost somber voice as she glances at her mom. Lexa follows her gaze and finds the woman smiling at them for a moment before the man Clarke called Marcus calls her attention, “But come on, I’ll be by your side all along.”

“What,  _ now _ ?” Lexa almost feels for the woman who’s trying to be happy for her daughter and she can’t tell what would be worse - telling the truth now or waiting a few more hours.

“Would you like to have our wedding night first?” Clarke wiggles her eyebrows in an obscene way and Lexa rolls her eyes dramatically. If her stomach flutters with the thought, she blames the long years in between her and a romantic relationship. Lexa blatantly ignores Clarke’s chuckle and switches their flutes, keeping the half empty one to herself. She won’t be drinking at all, but she assumes Clarke will be needing all the liquid courage she can get.

Lexa links their fingers in a loose grip as they stroll towards Abby, “I hope she throws you overboard.”


	7. Chapter 7

**_vii._ **

**_5 YEARS LATER_ **

Her page beeps the moment her head hits her pillow and Clarke almost bursts out crying.

Forty-eight hours shifts are ruthless and she’s constantly dreading them, but she doesn’t get to choose, even if she’s a few inches removed from the bottom of the food chain in this hospital. Choosing shifts is for attendings and chiefs. She’s still stuck with weekend shifts at an ER that  _ never _ stops.

But it’s her break. It’s her goddamn break and she deserves - needs, won’t survive without - the two hour relieve from work. She had all but inhaled what she dares to call food so she could have at least an hour and a half of sleep, but that seems like a pipe dream as she reaches for her pager.

  1. _ER NOW._



Clarke is on her feet and tying her hair up in a bun in half a moment, all sleep and sluggishness draining from her as she mentally goes over what might await for her - it’s been raining mercilessly for late January and combined with the snow, car accident is the first thing that comes to mind - and tries to remember the protocols for the worst case scenarios. Her legs carry her through the door and into the brightly lit hallway, the path from the on-call room to the emergency room ingrained in her mind after four years of the same routine.

She jogs to meet one of the interns working under her as she hands her a file, “Talk to me, Harper.” Her voice would never give away that she had been in the brink of sleep a mere minute ago, her senses sharp as she opens the file and tries to soak in as much information as she can before finding her patient.

_ Female, early 30s. Heart rate at 86 BPM, blood pressure 140/90. No fever, no cyanosis.  _ Clarke slows her pace to a walk, skimming the whole file in a quick read before allowing her anger to set in. _ Fully lucid. No known allergies. Forearm laceration. _

Clarke comes to a halt, with an rage that only shows in the overtired and sleep deprived souls burning in her eyes, “A skin cut? You didn’t let me sleep because of a skin cut? You paged me 911 for a  _ skin cut _ ? Do you even know what 911 means?” She’s raging. She’s mourning her minutes of lost sleep and willing to take it out on the first person in her line of fire.

Harper dutifully cowers back, having worked with Clarke for long enough to know when to fight and when to let her exhaustion induced rage flow freely, “Sh- she’s a high profile patient, apparently.” The  _ apparently _ and the doubt in her voice makes Clarke cling her fingers tighter against the cheap paper fastly crumbling under the pressure, “She made a scene in the ER, saying she won’t have her arm sewn up by an intern,” Clarke tries to relate to the pain of not being taken serious merely because you’re still learning, but sleep clings to her and it clouds any sympathy she might be able to conjure up otherwise.  “She actually called me a child, I assume she meant intern. She demanded to be seen by an attending.”

“And you woke me up so I can call an attending because you’re too scared to do that?” Clarke asks pointedly and the lack of answer from Harper combined with the flush in her neck is answer enough. “Of course. Did this woman make you cry too?” Clarke Her tone is sardonic as she reaches up to rub at her eyes with the heels of her hand. Her annoyance is hardly misdirected, but what eats at her is knowing that she’s going to have to deal with what sounds to be a massive pain in the ass, “She better be the fucking pope or I swear you’ll be on night shifts in fucking geriatrics until you become an attending.”

Her threat is hollow and they both know it as Clarke sighs in defeat. She opens the file again as she trudges towards the emergency room, reading the name written in Harper’s sloppy cursive and trying to place it. Maybe she would make Harper practice her handwriting as a punishment, it certainly would do the entire hospital some good.

Clarke strides towards the emergency room, searching the row of beds neatly set up against the wall for the one she’s needed at -  _ needed _ being a goddamn stretch. She pulls the curtain that gives some vague sense of privacy to the side, talking as she squints to make sure she gets the name right, “Okay, Miss. Woods,” her voice lilts at the end in a question that goes unanswered, “I was told you refuse to be seen by my intern. Do you have a problem with residents as well?”

Her eyes are still glued to the chart, too busy trying to make sure she’s not missing any details to keep the bite out of her tone. Details that are completely missing. It seems like Harper ran away the  _ moment _ the woman laid eyes on her and didn’t even bother to write down how the laceration even happened. Clarke sighs, refraining from rubbing her eyes again as she feels the tendrils of a headache creeping around her brain. Harper will have a serious talk to when she’s done with this.

The woman has her back to Clarke, clearly not deigning her worthy of her attention as she scrolls through her phone with her good arm. At least, she has her other arm resting dutifully on the high table, paper sheets covering the wound for the moment. “I specifically requested an  _ attending _ . I won’t let my arm be your training wheels,” her voice makes Clarke’s insides twist - a  _ massive _ pain in the ass seemed like a compliment already.

Clarke takes a step towards the woman, setting the file on the bed and reaching for the sheets so she could take a peek on what she’d be working with. “I can assure you-” her speech about how she’d treat her arm as well as any attending would gets caught on her throat as the woman turns her head to glare at her, green eyes burning a hole in Clarke’s hand as if daring her to move the sheet another inch. But Clarke recognizes those eyes. “Lexa?”

Furious green eyes finally meet hers, softening almost immediately - surely, you don’t forget your first wife. It takes her a moment to digest it, but she surely recovers much faster than Clarke does. “ _ You _ are a resident in  _ Maine _ General? What are you doing across the country? Across the  _ world _ from where I left you?”

Later, Clarke will blame her exhaustion from going twenty hours without a proper rest and the adrenaline of being called into an emergency as she was falling asleep. But she closes the small distance between them and throws her arms around Lexa, carefully avoiding moving her wounded arm as she squeezes the woman harder than she would in normal circumstances. If she closes her eyes, she can almost smell the lingering salt in Lexa’s hair mixed with the sandalwood tones of her perfume. It’s been  _ ages _ , but she could never treat her partner in crime any less affectionately. 

“I thought I’d never see you again,” the words spill from her lips before she can bite them back. They had parted without exchanging phone numbers or addresses or even a goddamn email, and while it felt like a good idea at the time, it soon became a bitter regret. Clarke loosens the embrace and holds her at arm’s length, enjoying the soft tug at Lexa’s lips, “How are you?”

“I’ve been better,” Lexa scoffs and shrugs the shoulder from her wounded arm. It’s a stupid question - she can’t really be great if she’s in an emergency room - but again, Clarke will gladly blame it on exhaustion and adrenaline again. “I still want an attending.”

“I can’t believe you don’t trust your wife.”

“ _ Ex _ -wife.”

“I don’t remember signing any divorce papers.”

“I don’t remember signing our marriage license either.”

Clarke ducks her head to try and hide her grin at the light bantering, but it doesn’t bother her when she fails miserably. Lexa has a smile on her as well, although it’s tinged by pain - that’s when Clarke snaps back to reality. “I’ll just take a look, okay?” Clarke tilts her chin to Lexa’s covered arm as she reaches for a pair of gloves, snapping them in place before Lexa can give her an answer, “I promise I’ll get you the Chief of Surgery himself to do it if it looks bad.”

Lexa nods once, curtly. It’s all the approval Clarke needs before nudging a stool with her foot and sitting down to peel the paper sheets away. She folds them carefully to the side, as if to show she’ll need them again, even if she has no intention of calling an attending. It’s a standard procedure, one that she could do with her eyes closed and a hand tied to her back, but she’s gotten to know Lexa enough in those days to know she needs the reassurance. 

The cut goes from the inside of her elbow until halfway her forearm and it is really just broken skin, but the length of it asks for a few stitches. Clarke mumbles that she needs to clean it to see how deep it goes and Lexa nods again when their eyes meet, her jaw pressed tight. As she pours saline solution on the cut, Clarke takes Lexa in. She’s a far cry from the sun kissed girl in shorts and low cut tank she met in a cruise ship all those years ago. Her mile-long legs are clad in dark slacks and her long curls falling on exposed shoulders are just a memory with her formal up-do hiding them all away in a composed fashion. She’s not a girl accepting to marry a stranger just for the fun of it - she’s a  _ woman _ .

Clarke clears her throat to call Lexa’s attention, dipping her head towards the wound as if she hadn’t been looking anywhere else, “It’s a pretty shallow cut, I just need to give you a few stitches and you’ll be free to go,” she raises a gloved hand to stop Lexa’s scolding - the crease in between her brows foretells it. “I know what I’m doing, I’ve done this a thousand times. You can criticize me all the way, but I feel better doing this myself than leaving you on Cartwig’s hands. She’ll butcher you, and I know how to do subcuticular suture so you’ll have no scar whatsoever.”

She sends a silent prayer to whatever god is listening that no one overhears her talking shit about Cartwig. If the woman finds out, Clarke is fucking dead meat.

“Fine. But if you ruin my arm, I’m coming after you,” Lexa says in a serious tone and Clarke fully believes her, until she sees another smile stubbornly pulling at her lips. Clarke smiles back at her and mockingly rolls her eyes as she reaches for the needle holder and takes her time fitting the absorbent suture on it. She’s so focused on it, her eyes slightly bleary without her glasses making it hard to see such a tiny hole, that she almost misses Lexa’s soft voice, “Why are you here?”

Clarke drops the needle holder in frustration for a moment and reaches for the anesthetic already in a syringe, wiping the skin beside the cut with an alcohol soaked cotton ball before injecting the liquid. It gives her a nice lull to think about her answer. It’s straightforward, but she considers turning it into something flirty before shaking the idea from her mind, “The professor I worked under back in Australia knew the Chief of Surgery here and said it was an excellent program for me. And I wanted a fresh start after what happened with my mom, so when I had the opportunity to move to the east coast, I jumped right on it.”

Clarke focuses back on fitting the suture in the needle, biting down on her lip. Her relationship with her mother had been strained ever since her dad passed, but fake marrying a girl she just met  _ only _ to piss her off had been the last straw. She can’t be sure Lexa remembers it all, but Clarke thinks it’d be hard to forget the way Abby stormed out of their wedding reception, leaving Clarke with the shape of her five fingers burning on her cheek and words cutting deep in her heart.

Lexa nods again, abruptly changing subject, “My arm is numb. You can start stitching, if you want.” Clarke turns to her with a smirk, victoriously holding the needle and suture string, a mocking answer itching the tip of her tongue. Lexa beats her to it, rolling her eyes, “I do trust you, Clarke.”

If it sounds much more dramatic than it should, Clarke bites back a comment and starts on the first stitch. She pauses briefly to glance up at Lexa, only to find she had gone several shades paler - not everyone has it in them to watch their own skin being stitched back together, but who would have thought  _ Lexa _ would be squirmish. “What are you doing in Augusta though? Aren’t you supposed to be rulling a tiny town by now?”

It’s a good distraction, to keep the patient talking. And Lexa falls right into the role, sighing dramatically and turning her head to stare at the off white paint chipping from the wall, “I don’t  _ rule _ the town, I’m the mayor.”

“So you did get elected, after all,” Clarke says more as a prompt for her to keep going, expertly bending the string into a surgical knot that stays inside the skin. Her months working under a plastic surgeon are finally paying off - to impress a girl, but it’s still a payoff.

Lexa smiles fondly at the thought of her people, “I did. I grew up there, it wasn’t difficult for them to trust me enough to elect me. I like to think I’ve done some good for them, and I’m in Augusta because I hope to do some good for more people than just the handful thousand back there.” Clarke snorts at the way she phrased it and hums for Lexa to keep going, “I’m running for State Representative next year, I’m here to pledge for endorsements.”

“So you drove all the way to Augusta to kiss some politician’s ass and ends up running into your wife. It’s a nice deal,” Clarke is halfway done already and something inside her sinks at the thought of letting this woman go once again. 

She looks up and Lexa meets her eyes, the warmth in the deep green of hers making Clarke wonder if she can read all her thoughts, “It was indeed a nice deal.” The words sound almost foreign in her lips, but it makes Clarke all kinds of fuzzy as she turns back to focus on what she’s working with. Lexa doesn’t speak for a moment and Clarke doesn’t have to look up to know she’s being studied, “Anyway, the  _ tiny town _ as you called it is a one hour drive from here. I could make it here every weekend without getting all that tired.”

What Clarke reads on that last sentence is almost enough for her to lose her grip on the needle holder. She sets her jaw tight, forcing those thoughts away from her mind for the moment, trying to keep her hopes from hitting the roof. Instead, she keeps the conversation going, “How wild did your meetings get for you to get a cut like this?”

Lexa sighs heavily, “I may have yelled at a waiter for not reserving the table I had asked for without realizing he was carrying a skewer.” She pinches the bridge of her nose, avoiding Clarke’s eyes as if she’d find judgement in them, “He jumped, I jumped. The skewer sliced my arm. I had to push the meeting back. It- it was not one of my finest moments.”

“Oh,” Clarke sits back with an amused smirk in her lips, clipping the suture and dropping the tools back on its tray, “So you make a habit of yelling at people you don’t deem worthy of serving you. I see. Good to know.”

The teasing is clear in her voice, but Lexa turns wild eyed at her as she sucks in a sharp breath, “I- I don’t. I’m usually much more...  _ lenient _ than this. I-” Lexa tumbles over her own words, which once serves to make Clarke grin even wider as she dresses the wound and tapes the gauze in place, “It’s been a stressful couple of days.”

“Would you like to tell me about it over dinner?” From the casual way Clarke drops the question, no one could really notice how her heart rate skyrockets and each beat is a hammer coming down on her ribs. She tilts her chin up and wets her lips, storing the way Lexa’s eyes follow the movement as information for later.

Lexa looks down at her arm, studying the dressing with more intent than necessary as she brings it to rest on her lap, before giving Clarke a once over. Suddenly, she’s  _ very _ aware that she’s wearing day old scrubs, with wisps of hair falling from her haphazardly put together bun and dark circles under her eyes - certainly a catch. “You’re asking me out on a date?”

She nods, wiggling her eyebrows once for good measure. Clarke holds her breath as Lexa stays silent. Maybe she’s read this entire thing wrong. Maybe Lexa has a someone in her life already. Maybe she’s married and ticked the  _ miss _ box by accident. “You can give me an answer in seven days, when you’re back for me to check on your stitches.” 

It’s her way to give Lexa an out. Her stitches will be fine and a nurse back in her town could easily tell her that.

Clarke gets up to gather the instruments she used, categorizing where she’d have to dispose of each one as a way to keep her heart from sinking at the unspoken rejection. Before she can put anything away, Lexa reaches for her with her good arm, touching her wrist to stop her, “I want to see you before that. When do you finish your shift?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted a thing about this story, a few others I have ongoing and a couple I plan on starting soon on Tumblr. You can find it [here](http://sassymajesty.tumblr.com/post/164229531133), if you want to check it out!
> 
> Oh, I made a moodboard way back when I posted this on Patreon. I didn't have any clue how to make a moodboard work, but you can find it [here](https://c10.patreon.com/3/eyJ3Ijo2MjB9/patreon-posts/G8eequODFXm2NwFOVaqdsSv6y7URLxC80ALN4Wr3ot0YHxaYjIbyoQ4arQGy5r9m.png?token-time=2145916800&token-hash=cuDgiAc7J5Yo7whZ1V54SO0w90iIXxWAQnIpUBYZ_D0%3D).
> 
> And I want to take a moment to give each and every one of you a HUGE hug and a even bigger thank you for reading this story!! Every kudos, every comment makes my heart grows to five times its size - it means a lot for me that you guys enjoy this little thing that started as a prompt for three chapters top. :')


	8. Chapter 8

**_viii._ **

With Lexa’s busy schedule and Clarke’s crazy shifts, they only manage to squeeze in a dinner date into their schedules three days later.

After dismissing Lexa from the emergency room, Clarke still had several hours left on her shift and, apparently, needed fourteen entire hours of solid sleep before considering herself a person again. Lexa was more than happy to grant her that time because, between explaining to every new future endorser why she had stitches on her arm and juggling all the meetings she had to attend before going back home, her plate was more than full. It turns out having plans to be taken out by a pretty girl can do wonders - she barely blinked in her meetings, going in and out of them seamlessly, only trying to focus on seeing Clarke.

Clarke takes her to a  _ steakhouse _ , because of course she does. It’s good to see her twisted sense of humor hasn’t changed much in five years, it’s good to know she’s still that sun kissed girl that thought fake marrying a stranger was the definition of a good time.

The first time a waiter swings beside them with a skewer in hand, Clarke laughs such a rich and gorgeous laughter that Lexa worries for a moment, before finding herself smiling in amusement. If it were anyone else, Lexa would slap her napkin on the table and leave in a furious rage because  _ how dare them _ make fun of her like that. But with Clarke, all Lexa can do is roll her eyes playfully and gesture for a waiter - without any sharp instruments - so they can place their order.

Lexa had grown hard in these last few years, much more strict with herself than she were during law school, a far cry from her carefree self she left in high school. She hadn’t become the first mayor to drag that town into the industrial age by being a softie who cried when spoken loudly to. Her quiet nature had given way to eloquent speeches and strong handshakes, leaving whatever was left of her naiveness behind as she trudged forward and met new people, shook even more hands and never let her guard down. She had become someone to be respected whenever she entered a room, feared when she glared - at least, that’s what Anya said -, and only approachable as a politician had to be.

Now, watching Clarke tease her about terrifying the waiters and laugh at her own jokes, Lexa can almost see herself embracing her softer side again.

Between tenderloins and steamed broccoli, Lexa eases into the conversation and they pick up almost from where they left off all those years ago. She knows Clarke, she got to know her after their wedding, when they found out they genuinely enjoyed each other’s company - Clarke would spend her nights partying and Lexa would sleep early with a book on top of her chest, but late mornings and most afternoons were spent under the southern blue sky, getting tan lines as they argued over favorite movies and foods, talked about what turned them into what they are, shared stories and scars.

Clarke had told Lexa about Finn in between tequila shots and angry tears. Lexa shared the reason why she didn’t drink anymore in hushed whispers under bedsheets. After, Clarke had wrapped her arms around Lexa and murmured over and over that the car crash hadn’t been her fault, so many times that the words lost their meaning, so many times that Lexa had started to believe.

For the full two weeks they had spent together, they had grown to know and love each other without any other intention than pure friendship. They never kissed again, never pretended they could have more than they were allowing themselves. Lexa missed her. And apparently, so did Clarke.

And now she learns everything that  _ changed _ . She gets to know this new Clarke, this woman who doesn’t beat around the bush to say what she wants and to go for it, who wants to become a general surgeon like her mother despite its implications, who has a cat named Luna that never sleeps anywhere but her bed.

By the time they reach dessert, Lexa is having to physically force herself to breathe in a steady rate. One of the new things she learned about Clarke is that she gets  _ handsy _ when she drinks more than two glasses of wine with her meal. Clarke had dragged her chair until it was beside Lexa’s, under the uncanny pretense of sharing a dessert they never even touch, and now, she has a hand slowly but surely making its way up her thigh. Clarke pulls up pictures of her cat on her phone, scrolling through several of them as she draws lazy circles on the inside of Lexa’s knee. Lexa tries to focus on the adorable kitten playing with a yarn ball, making a face to the camera or sleeping in the most ridiculous position, but when Clarke asks if she wants to meet Luna, Lexa almost trips over her feet to get up and get  _ going _ .

The cab drive is  _ torturous _ for Lexa. She can feel all the years she shut herself off from any human contact building up in her stomach, turning her legs into lead, her voice into silk and whatever resolution she had before dinner into smoke. They snuggle in the back seat, the cool night air doing nothing to ease the fire in Lexa’s stomach, talking in hushed tones about places to have brunch nearby and how shy Luna actually is, laughing about nothing in the way tipsy people do.

Clarke pays the cab and it drives off before Lexa can get a hold of herself, before she can fight her heart into staying still in her chest and not leaping at the sight of Clarke’s softened gaze. When she realizes this is a lost fight, that it’s a fight she doesn’t even  _ want _ to win, Lexa closes the distance between them and wraps an arm around Clarke’s waist, bringing their lips together in a kiss she ached for years to give.

It’s different from all the kisses they shared before. This isn’t a show they’re putting for her mother to believe in them, this isn’t a stolen kiss when they’re pretending to be in love. This is just for them. The soft brushing of lips, the tongue peeking and timidly asking permission, the gentle deepening of the kiss - it’s all just for them.

Clarke pulls back after a beat and Lexa follows her lips for a moment, eyes glazed over with lust and something else, something softer, before catching herself and drawing back as well. “Wanna come up?” Clarke whispers, her voice almost taken away by the evening breeze, and Lexa can’t do anything but nod and let Clarke kiss her once more before their hands intertwine.

Lexa follows her blindly, without bothering to say hi to the doorman or acknowledging what floor Clarke presses when they enter the elevator. She’s pure instinct when she molds her body against Clarke’s, pressing her back against the wall the moment the doors close, her hands keeping her in place by her hips as she searches for her lips. They deepen the kiss almost instantly, Clarke’s lips open and waiting already, and they both whimper when their tongues touch.

Snaking thigh in between Clarke’s, Lexa presses up and smiles into the kiss a moment before Clarke breaks it, nearly shivering as she wraps her fingers in dark hair, tugging at it one way or another as Lexa peppers kisses down her neck.

They’re nearly undressing each other by the time the elevator reaches Clarke’s floor, and it doesn’t feel hurried at all. It doesn’t feel anything but  _ right _ . 

They had gotten to know each other’s soul five years ago. Now it was time to get to know their bodies.

◌

Shutting the door closed with her heel, Lexa sets a paper bag on the hood of her car as she almost gets inside her purse to find her phone, that she  _ just _ threw in but it’s already lost. It desperately needs a cleaning. It’s a mess of combined evidence from everything she did and everywhere she went in the last month, from protein bar wrappers to promotional pens, but she needs to sit down with Clarke to get it done. Her girlfriend - they’ve gone official for almost four months now and it still makes Lexa’s stomach flutter - leaves all her receipts with her, because  _ of course _ Clarke doesn’t care about her tax returns.

She manages to slide her finger to answer the call right before it goes to voicemail, “ _ Hey, babe. Sorry I couldn’t pick up, surgery ran longer than we thought _ ,” the voice in the other side of the line sounds exhausted and it reminds her of home and cozy mornings snuggled up around each other.

“You know it’s fine,” she says with a grunt as she holds her phone in between her ear and shoulder, trying to hoister her bag up her shoulder and grab the paper bag without spilling all its contents. They’ve had more missed calls than answered ones for a while now and Lexa didn’t quite feel like fighting over it - not today, anyway. “How are you?”

“ _ Tired. Hungry. Missing you, _ ” Clarke’s matter-o-factly voice makes Lexa pause and smile even wider to herself - god, that girl is a sap. She nearly drops everything when she hears Clarke whining like a toddler who wants another cookie, but somehow manages to gather everything, turn on the car alarm and grab her phone again, “ _ I haven’t seen you in weeks.” _

Being a fourth year general surgery resident meant Clarke had gone from constant forty-eight-hour shifts to a more regular schedule, around ten hours a day in a calm day and the odd night shift here and there. It had been a good change for Clarke’s sleep schedule, but it means they only get to see each other during the weekend now - which is when Lexa has to stay in office handling everything she delegated during the week. “I told you to come down for the weekend, but you refuse to.”

Clarke clicks her tongue at Lexa - they’re had this argument before, so Lexa is glad when Clarke chooses the comedy version of it. “ _ You don’t have Beety’s burger there, it’s not a weekend without it. _ ”

Staying one year in Australia had completely ruined Clarke when it came to burgers, so really, finding the one place in Augusta that put beetroot and caramelized onions in their burgers had been the highlight of Clarke’s life. Lexa smirks knowingly, “Good point. But  _ I _ am, that should be enough.”

“ _ Ugh, I should go, _ ” the defeat in her Clarke’s and Lexa knows she’ll be having company for the weekend. Her heels tap loudly on the cement, the early evening air thick the promise of snow, and Lexa hears a loud noise in the other side of the line, some heavy cursing and grunting before Clarke speaks again, “ _ It’s been so long I can’t even remember your face. _ ”

Lexa chuckles at that, shaking her head at the drama queen she gets to call her girlfriend, “Clarke, we skyped yesterday.” She shoulders the double doors open, barely managing to get inside the building without dropping her things, nodding hello to a few familiar faces.

“ _ I just came out of a 12h surgery, let me be dramatic, _ ” Clarke huffs and Lexa wants to ask about the surgery, even if the gruesome details that Clarke finds so interesting does nothing but make her nauseous. She wants to ask why it took too long, was it the little boy with the kidney tumor they were trying to find a way to dissect? But she holds her tongue - that can wait.

“Okay, then,” Lexa nods to no one in particular, focusing on the sounds coming from the other side - door clicking in place, buttons making  _ ‘ding’ _ noises, a soft humming - as she dodges the crowd in her path and speeds up her pace, “I miss you too.”

“ _ Keep talking, _ ” Clarke yawns, loud and clear, and it makes Lexa feel for her, like it always does when the long hours and heavy emotional baggage that comes with residency catches up with Clarke. She wants to take her girlfriend home, cook her some decent food and let her sleep for a full day. But tonight is her night shift, which means she won’t be getting any sleep until at least twelve hours from now, “ _ Tell me about your day, I’m getting started on my a gourmet dinner - microwaved noodles and instant coffee. _ ”

The thought of that being Clarke’s dinner makes Lexa’s skin crawl. “What would you give for a Beety’s burger right now?” She’s aware it’s mean to tease Clarke like that when she can almost hear her stomach growling over the phone - she eats like a teenage boy after football practice when she gets out of surgery - but she can’t help herself.

Lexa is rewarded with a moan followed by a pitiful cry, both of which make her laugh to her heart’s content. “ _ My entire kingdom and two goats, _ ” Clarke shoots back, making little to no sense. The poor woman must be tired to the bones, but it all just makes Lexa smile to herself as she holds her paper bag in front of her.

“Open the door.”

She hangs up on Clarke’s mumbled confusion as she hears footsteps coming from the other side of the door. Lexa has to bite her lips to keep herself from giggling in excitement as Clarke opens the door and peeks through a crack before swinging it open and throwing her arms around Lexa’s shoulders.

“Lexa!” Clarke yelps and gives her a sloppy kiss, that Lexa smiles through, tasting cheap coffee in her lips, before turning her attention to the paper bag Lexa is giving her. She takes the grease stained bag and nearly cries at the red and purple logo, “Oh my god! I love you.” Clarke blurts it out and Lexa freezes, her eyes bulging slightly from its sockets, a lump in her throat making it hard to breathe. It wasn’t supposed to be like this - she wanted candles and flowers, or at least a better lighting than fluorescent overhead lights. Clarke presses her lips against hers again and launches back into talking, almost tripping over her words, “Oh, stop pretending like you didn’t know already. I’m not taking it back, I love you. It’s about time I tell you I love you. You don’t have to say it back”

But again, nothing with Clarke has ever happened the way Lexa thought it was supposed to.

“I do love you,” the words tumble out of her lips and she kisses Clarke again. She pretends the words didn’t tremble on their way out, she pretends she isn’t shaking from head to toe. It’s been so long since she’s said those words that Lexa barely remembers how they taste - well, now they taste like coffee and coming home.

“Good, I’d cry if you didn’t say it back.” With a last peck to her lips, Clarke cradles the paper bag closer to her body as she enters the room that doubles as rest room and kitchen for all the residents and interns, plopping down gracelessly on the couch, “I’m so exhausted I don’t even know what emotional stability means anymore.”

Lexa smiles and makes her way towards Clarke, dropping her bag to the foot of the couch before sitting down. She takes a moment to look at Clarke, to look at the woman she loves, the woman who loves her back. Her blonde hair is piled into a messy high bun, more than a few strands falling loose around her face, and her outfit consists of light blue scrubs and grey and orange sneakers - Lexa made fun of them before, Clarke shrugged and said they’re the most comfortable thing she owns. She has dark circles under her eyes and her shoulders stay hunched, probably stuck in the position they’ve been for the last twelve hours, but she’s still a sight for sore eyes.

Her blue eyes go wide as she takes the first bite of her burger, biting into it again before she’s done chewing, the corners of her mouth turning a faint purple with the beetroot. She moans into her food and pops sweet potato fries into her mouth in a manner that is anything but classy, offering some to Lexa - she doesn’t take it, as much as she loves to see Clarke eating it, she can’t stomach the onions. 

It takes Lexa a few moments to realize she’s smiling like a fool in love - which, admittedly, she is.

“How long until you need to be back?” Lexa hands a few paper napkins to Clarke after she’s done eating - in five minutes flat, no more.

Clarke slouches back against the couch, grunting as she taps her belly. It’s an amusing sight to Lexa, who’s sitting straight backed on the edge of the couch. Clarke answers in a sleepy voice, her eyes closing on their own accord after too much food, “Half an hour or so. I have to check on a few patients soon, do the post-op on my guy, head up to the ER for the night.”

“What if we cuddle for a little bit. Will that cheer you up?” Lexa throws the suggestion in a quiet voice, as if this is purely for Clarke’s benefit, as if she hasn’t been having trouble sleeping in her own bed without Clarke beside her.

Clarke perks up at that, “God,  _ yes _ .” She turns to Lexa and smirks teasingly, wiggling her eyebrows almost comically as she sighs to herself, “Good food and sex at work. I really did get myself a good woman.”

“We’re not having sex in the on call room, Clarke,” Lexa playfully scolds Clarke, watching her get up and reach out for her, wiggling her fingers until Lexa takes it so she can help her up. Lexa rolls her eyes at the new hunger in Clarke, her pupils growing to almost swallow the blue in her eyes, as if that hunger isn’t reflected in her own stare. “This isn’t Grey’s Anatomy,” the moment the words leave her lips, she knows she’s lost the battle.

“Oh, we are so having sex in the on call room.”

◌

Her eyes stay glued to the computer screen, still typing furiously as she hears the front door clicking open, making Lexa smile softly - Clarke is home.

Truthfully, she left half an hour ago to go get groceries, but hearing Clarke use her own key to let herself into the house Lexa grew up in makes her heart beat just that much faster. It’s grossly domestic to hear the familiar sounds of someone else tossing their keys on the bowl near the door, the soft padding of bare feet making their way towards the kitchen, items being taken out of paper bags and stored away properly. It lights Lexa up every time, even if Clarke is mainly the only one who ever does grocery shopping these days.

Lexa has been swamped with work, trying to juggle her day-to-day tasks as mayor and running for state representative, but Clarke makes sure to come down every once in a while to check up on her. Well, that’s a lie - Clarke had changed her schedule back to forty-eight-hour shifts so she could get a few free days every week to come stay at Lexa’s. Which ended up with her going for groceries to keep Lexa from eating take out every night, even cleaning around the house every now and then, making friends in the tiny town and falling asleep on the couch beside her nearly every night.

At first, Clarke had whined about staying in the 3,500 population town for more than a weekend -  _ “There are like ten people in this town - nine of them are old and the other one is you” _ . But she had grown fond of the farmer’s market guy who taught her how to season beetroot and make her own homemade burgers, had found a way to love the quietness and stillness that matched Lexa so well. They’ve been together for an entire year now, and Lexa has never felt more at home than when she’s with Clarke.

They’ve had their fights - God and virtually every neighbor knew that. But they never went to bed without making up, even if it meant they didn’t go to bed at all. They never stayed mad at each other for long and between waking up curled up around each other and finding ways to never have to sleep alone, they were making it work.

Lexa could barely believe they were making it work.

She starts a new session of the bill she wants to pass before her time in office is over, skimming the previous bills she has open in her iPad as she types up a new article, and pays half attention to the sounds Clarke is making. It doesn’t take long for the soft padding to make its way towards her - Clarke loves to walk barefoot everywhere she goes.

Lexa doesn’t lift her eyes from the screen as Clarke enters the room and tosses something on the cushion beside her. It takes her a few more seconds to finish typing the sentence she had started, but then Lexa looks up at Clarke, only to burst out laughing.

Clarke stands in a militar fashion, almost - feet apart, shoulders thrown back, chin high up, a defying glare in her face as she holds what Lexa can safely assume is a water gun. When her girlfriend doesn’t break character, Lexa looks at the similar gun resting beside her. It’s not made to resemble an actual gun either - it’s oversized, in bright yellow and orange plastic, the water sloshing inside a lime green tank.

“Come on, Woods,” Clarke teases when Lexa doesn’t move to take her gun, “Whoever loses must do the dishes. For the entire  _ month _ .”

Lexa’s smile widens for a moment before fading slightly as she traces the plastic trigger of the gun beside her, looking up to meet the barrel of Clarke’s gun pointed straight at her heart. “Clarke, I need to get this done,” her voice is meant to be strong and leave no doubt that she will not be joining such childish play, but it’s so soft she might as well be putting her laptop away.

Truth be told, her resolution is waning fast. Something about Clarke trying to look all fierce and dangerous while holding a ridiculously bright gun makes her insides melt - her mind goes straight to children running around the house, feet dirty from playing outside all day, chasing their mom to flee bath time.

Clarke shoots at her, water squirting from the gun and hitting her square in the chest. When Lexa  _ glares _ , Clarke merely raises an eyebrow, “Scared you’ll lose?”

Lexa gasps incredulously and turns her attention back to her computer, saving her work and powering it down as slowly as she can to come up with a fighting strategy. Of course she’ll indulge Clarke in it, she’d probably engage in sword combat if it made Clarke happy. But before she can even close her laptop, Clarke shoots again, hitting her straight in the ear and Lexa yelps at the awful sensation. “You little-,” Lexa almost drops her laptop in her hurry to pick up her own gun and fire at Clarke, who’s giggling like a toddler as she runs away, “Come back, you coward!  _ Fight me! _ ”

Following the heavy footsteps as Clarke makes her way from their home office to the kitchen, Lexa shoots her gun at nothing in particular at first, before hitting a wall and only then aiming at Clarke. She gets her in the middle of her back, her bum and thigh, but Clarke doesn’t seem fazed by the cold water at all, instead turning back and shooting water at Lexa’s face. She grunts in disbelief and shoots repeatedly at Clarke as they make their way out of the house and towards the backyard.

With a house covered in water splotches, on walls and pooling on the hardwood floor, and running barefoot around the firepit trying to dodge Clarke’s shooting, Lexa laughs so hard her belly hurts. 

She never knew she could be this happy.


	9. Chapter 9

**_xix._ **

As she turns the key and unlocks her apartment door, Clarke admits to herself that she’s more than a little scared of what she might find inside. 

She had been shunned from her own home in the late afternoon, handed over to Octavia and Raven with a bag, and forbidden of even thinking about coming back before Lexa told her to. She had pouted and stomped like a child - Lexa had spent the entire day in and out of meetings and they had little over twelve hours before Clarke started her forty-eight-hour shift and Lexa flew to Washington for even more meetings. But Lexa had been adamant about shooing Clarke with a quick peck on her lips.

When she finally got a text to let her know she could come back home, Clarke was all dolled up. Octavia had done her hair in intricate braids that turned into a low bun - the mere thought of taking all those damn bobby pins off her hair before bed gave her a headache - while Raven worked on giving her the wildest smokey eyes with eyelashes long enough to fan Cleopatra. As Clarke slipped on her black pumps and shimmed into a peach colored dress with a neckline a little too revealing for her taste, she let the memories of the last time they had joined efforts to make her look nice for Lexa.

It’s been almost seven years since they got married - two months and nine days from today, to be precise. 

Clarke thought about the ring resting in her drawer, safely hidden among socks and scrubs. In two months and nine days, she’d take Lexa out for dinner, somewhere near a beach if they could find the time for the long drive, and propose. She has a whole speech planned and she has little hope she’ll make through it without crying. Lexa - her sweet Lexa who teared up when she read the news about a police puppy failing academy for being too friendly -  will cry too. It’ll be a sob fest and she can’t wait.

She half expects to find a litter of puppies - she had insisted they  _ needed _ a dog, even if they barely stay home - or new living room furniture that actually matched. But whatever Clarke had in mind, it doesn’t live up to what she finds when she steps into her apartment.

Candles. Candles  _ everywhere _ \- on the side table against the hallway door where they kept their keys, on the kitchen island and the stools they had beside it, on their dining table beside plate settings and wine bottles, on the shelves, on the coffee table in the living room area and even some on the floor around it. 

It’s not news to Clarke that Lexa has an unhealthy love for candles, but to have the entire apartment cast in the warm flickering light of a hundred candles was breathtaking. 

She takes a few tentative steps towards the living room, her legs barely holding her up as she lets her smile grow wider. Had Lexa planned a candle lit dinner for them? Clarke can barely believe how much of a sap her girlfriend is as she takes in the bouquet on the island, already soaking in a beautiful vase she doesn’t remember owning. It takes her a moment to name all the flowers, but she can make out red roses, white lilies and red carnations with lush greens all around.

Letting her fingertips trace the silken white of one of the lilies, Clarke smile softly before turning to look for Lexa. She finds her coming out of their room, her loose hair falling in gentle waves down one shoulder, her black dress swaying as she makes her way through the candles and towards Clarke.

“Hi,” her voice is soft, matching the room around them. Lexa smiles at how gently Clarke is touching the petals as she closes the space in between them, “Do you like them?”

Clarke merely nods through her smile, dipping her head until their lips meet in a sweet kiss. She lets go of the flowers to trace Lexa’s naked arm and cup her cheek, pulling her closer with an arm around her waist. The kiss deepens ever so slightly, their lips opening in a soft sigh, and Lexa reaches up to cup Clarke’s hand on her cheek. When they break the kiss, Clarke asks in a breathy voice, “What’s all this for?”

“To celebrate, I hope.” Lexa takes a step back, linking their fingers in between them with a mischievous glint in her eyes. Clarke could lose herself in them, the forest green turned almost golden in the warm light, all the mysteries in the universe turned small when she gazes into them.

She takes a shuddering breath, the weight of her love for the woman making it hard to breathe. Then she smiles wider, narrowing her eyes playfully, “And what are we celebrating?”

Lexa arches her eyebrows and bites her bottom lip to keep her smile from turning into a full grin as she lets go of Clarke’s hand and takes another step back. Clarke follows her movements, her heart thundering against her ribcage as if it knows something she doesn’t and is trying to warn her. Lexa moves as water, fluid and without any hard edges, and it takes Clarke a few extra moments to register what’s happening.

Her dress floats and pools around her as she goes down on one knee, bringing her hand forward to reveal a little velvet box - Clarke hadn’t even noticed she had kept one hand behind her. Clarke watches jaw slacked as Lexa pops it open, revealing a breathtaking ring - the band is open curved, with diamonds set all over it, and a beautiful solitaire rising from the top. Clarke forces herself to take a breathe, as painful as it is with her heart nearly bursting, and finds Lexa’s eyes, shining greener than ever behind the unshed tears.

“Clarke,” her voice is croaky, like she’s fighting to get the words out without choking on them, and Clarke lets out a breathy laughter - she can’t believe this is happening. And this  _ is _ happening. “Almost seven years ago, I vowed to not only grow old together, but to grow together. And I still want that. I want everything I once promised in a fake wedding, I want it all to be real,” Lexa blinks and her tears roll down her cheeks, collapsing on her smile, “I want to build a family with you, to stumble past all the cracks and bumps on the road, to be able to look back and say that we made it, together. I don’t want to do it with anyone else.” Clarke nods to every word without realizing, silently agreeing to everything she’s saying, already agreeing to Lexa’s yet unspoken question, “Clarke Griffin, will you marry me?”

She takes a breath to answer  _ yes, yes, a million times yes _ , but another word leaves her lips, “Wait.” Before she thinks her actions through, Clarke climbs down from her heels and rushes to the bedroom, her feet padding softly against the hardwood floor - she only realizes she left Lexa down on one knee, still waiting for an answer when she’s already rummaging through her drawers. “Fuck.”

Clarke makes quick work of it, throwing a few scrubs to the floor and searching blindly to the back of her drawer until her fingers close around the band. She hadn’t had time to get a ring box yet - well, she had ordered it already, one in dark red velvet with  _ L _ and  _ C _ monograms intertwined on the lid, it just hadn’t arrived. She just grabs it, wrapping her trembling hand around it in a fist so it wouldn’t fall to the floor, and runs back to the living room.

She finds Lexa pouring herself a glass of wine, filling the stem glass until it was nearly overflowing. It’s always odd to see Lexa drinking any alcohol, she’s been slowly stepping back into drinking it at all for a few months now. Even if now it looks like she’s ready to drown herself in it, it makes Clarke beam with pride - they have been growing together already.

The flickering light of the candles on the table give away the stubborn tears falling hot and heavy down Lexa’s cheeks as she takes a healthy gulp from her wine, setting it down with a shaky hand. She looks up to meet Clarke’s eyes, clenching her jaw before darting her gaze down to the table again, “It’s fine to say no, Clarke. I thought we were at the same place but clearly… well,” her voice is quiet and small, and it breaks Clarke’s heart that Lexa could even think that.

Clarke makes her way towards her, ignoring Lexa’s lifted hand and her murmured apologies, and wraps her arm around her neck, bringing her down to a bruising kiss. She wants to pour all her love into that kiss, until Lexa understands that no matter what happens, no matter whatever life throws at them or how hard it is to face it, she’ll always be there.

“Will  _ you _ marry me?” Clarke whispers against Lexa’s lips, parting just enough to show her fiancée-to-be the engagement ring she’s holding. 

It’s not the proposal she had spent days perfecting and memorized, but when Lexa nods, a smile bursting across her face as she says  _ yes, yes, of course _ and kisses her again, Clarke knows she wouldn’t have it any other way.


	10. Chapter 10

**_x._ **

The early afternoon sun shines brightly on them, warm enough for Clarke to feel too hot in her thin sweater, but she still snuggles further into Lexa as they walk back to her apartment with linked arms. She squints at the blue sky, not a cloud to be seen, and she thinks to herself that they really don’t take much advantage of the city. Clarke can’t even remember what was the last time they had lunch in a patio or sat down to read on Sunday mornings. Truthfully, most days all they had time for was a veggie wrap - or grilled cheese and coffee for her - on the go and she had long ago convinced Lexa Sunday was a day for sleeping in.

But still, it felt nice to be out and about, holding her future wife’s arm - even if Lexa is still shaking as if they had visited a torture chamber.

Clarke presses a kiss on the warm skin of Lexa’s collarbone, tilting her head until she could lie it on her shoulder, her hand on a firm and reassuring grip on her forearm. It is understandable for Lexa to be this riled up, and while Clarke knew her mother had only been joking around, Abby had certainly not made any of it easy on her fiancée.

They have been engaged for two months now and Clarke can’t imagine she’ll ever get tired of how gorgeous Lexa looks with a ring on her finger and a cheeky smile whenever they talked about wedding plans. So, when Abby said she was coming for a visit, it felt like the right time to tell her. Clarke had wanted to tell her over Skype, Lexa had been bargaining for a text, maybe not even tell her at all, but they both knew these news would be best received if delivered in person.

The two weeks between her mom telling them she’d be coming over and their lunch date had driven Clarke nearly mad. Mostly because Lexa looked like someone training to disarm a bomb and not meet her in law for the second time. 

Clarke’s relationship with her mother had gotten better over time and with almost an entire country in between them. They talked more than they shouted now in their sparse calls, keeping the topic towards surgeries Clarke had performed and whatever new thing she had learned instead of veering towards more delicate issues. Abby knew Clarke had run into Lexa - “ _ Who’s Lexa? Do I know a Lex- oh, you mean the girl you married to humiliate me in front of the entire cruise?” “Yeah, that one!” _ \- but she had never quite gotten around to telling her mom they had been in a relationship for over two years now.

Somehow, Lexa had been so much more nervous than Clarke could even fathom why. She had changed outfits four times this morning after having only black coffee as a healthy breakfast because her stomach had been upset for a few days. By the time they made it to the restaurant, Lexa was shaking like a leaf, paler by several shades and gripping Clarke’s arm with too much force.

When Clarke held her by the shoulders and forced her to look at her and explain why the hell she was so nervous to meet her  _ mom _ when she met with country leaders on a weekly basis, Lexa nearly collapsed as she tried to get the words out, “We’ve been here before. We’ve been in this exact situation before. She didn’t handle it well then. She won’t handle it well now.”

Snorting a laughter probably hadn’t helped Lexa’s nerves at all, but Clarke couldn’t help herself as she tugged Lexa inside. It had never occurred to her that seven years ago they had already walked into a lunch date with her mother and Clarke had introduced Lexa as her fiancée without prior warning. But what Clarke laughed about caused Lexa to sweat so much her hand was clammy as they linked their fingers and walked into the restaurant.

Lunch had been a fairly uneventful ordeal. Abby was pleasant enough and the entrees came at the same time Clarke casually dropped that they’ve been dating for a while now, saying they’ll get married in the spring as she drank from her wine. Whatever doomsday worth scene Lexa had been waiting for never came - Abby had merely squinted her eyes, studying them for a long while before saying “I don’t believe you. I’m not falling for that again,” and turning to ask Lexa about her work as mayor.

By the time dessert arrived, Clarke had been more than happy to enjoy her tiramisu in silence as her fiancée shared horror stories about her favorite HGTV shows and her mother eagerly pitched in - apparently, Abby was as obsessed with Property Brothers as Lexa was with Tiny House Hunters. Clarke sat back in her chair and watched with a smile on her face the way Lexa argued her case to Abby, “They wanted a two hundred square feet house with plenty of room for their two kids and  _ five dogs _ .”

Besides from Abby flat out not believing they’d get married, it had gone remarkably well - which doesn’t explain why Lexa is still a nervewreck.

“Babe,” Clarke starts with a small voice, trying not to spook Lexa - she gets very jumpy whenever her nerves are a mess like this. Lexa hums her recognition as they dodge a couple passing by with a twin stroller and for the tiniest second, Clarke allows her to imagine them as moms before cutting herself short. Another time. “You’re still shaking. We’re okay, she’s okay with us,” Clarke runs her palm up and down Lexa’s arm, trying to warm her up as she calms her down. Maybe they need some camomile tea before heading home.

“I know, I just-” Lexa sighs and Clarke can’t really tell if it’s a relieved sigh or a frustrated one, “I guess I worked myself up too much and now I keep thinking something will still go wrong.”

They cross the street to the park they usually joke about taking their dogs to and Clarke places a gentle kiss on the underside of Lexa’s jaw. “Like what?” She steers them away from the park and towards the coffee shop down the street to grab some tea before spending their afternoon watching kids play at the park.

“To be honest, I was waiting for her to get up and slap me,” Lexa shrugs at Clarke’s incredulous “ _ what?” _ , kicking a rock on the pavement. “I know it’s nonsense but I just- she slapped  _ you _ last time.”

Clarke chuckles at the most unreasonable worry Lexa could have and tugs at her arm, swinging their linked hands playfully, “Oh baby, don’t worry,” her voice is reassuring, but the way she snorts after it gives Lexa little comfort, “It was  _ after  _ the wedding.”

“You’re very helpful, I’m so glad we’re getting married,” Lexa says with a monotone voice and dead eyes, teasing Clarke with the sarcasm dripping from her. All Clarke can do is laugh for a solid moment before realizing Lexa is still worried about her mother’s approval.

She halts their walk and pushes Lexa until they’re leaning against the wall of a bookstore, out of the pedestrians way. “I’m kidding, come here,” Clarke wraps her arms around Lexa’s waist, smiling as she reluctantly grabs at her arms to keep her closer, and leans in until their foreheads are touching and the entire world has disappeared, “She’ll love to have you as her daughter-in-law and if she doesn’t, she won’t get to meet her grandkids.” Clarke knows she’s going through the right path when Lexa chuckles and shakes her head, “Lex, we’re starting a family and that’s just us. It’s gonna be you and me, through thick and thin. I don’t care who disapproves it, you’re gonna be my wife.”

Lexa presses their lips together and Clarke smiles into the kiss - her skin is warm from the sun and her lips taste like home, they always taste like home. “I love you.”

Clarke scoffs and smiles, rolling her eyes playfully as she tucks Lexa’s hand into hers and pulls from the wall to get their tea, “You should, I’m a catch.”

◌

The mainer weather is anything but forgiving in the winter months and Clarke had learned this lesson the hard way - nothing teaches you to bundle up as nearly having severe frostbite after thinking temperatures in the single digits wasn’t  _ that _ cold. 

But winter in Maine is magnificent when she gets to stay inside all day, wearing Lexa’s hoodie, wrapped up in blankets with the heat turned way up - she’ll never complain about her long shifts when they reward her with a few days at home, doing nothing but watching TV.

For Lexa’s sake, she gets up from the couch in the early evening to shower and get dinner ready. With her new seat as a State Representative, Lexa didn’t get a day off and leaving early was off the table for at least the next six months - if she wanted to take the weekend off to get married in the spring, she’d have to work for that.

If Clarke showers for longer than usual, there’s no one home to guilt her for it. Except Gustus, but he’s too cold to even bother getting up from his blankets. They’ve gotten Gustus right after Lexa got elected and Clarke couldn’t quite believe Lexa’s speech about how they were only getting a puppy so Clarke didn’t feel lonely when she was at work, not when Lexa would cuddle their basset and ban Clarke to the other couch. But he does make for good company as Clarke gets more vegetables than her teenage self could name into a pot to get started on a hearty soup.

Lexa gets home to find Clarke wearing pajama pants and Lexa’s university hoodie, the one with a hole in the sleeve and a bleach stain in the back - both Clarke’s fault, but Lexa never wears it anyway. Clarke can’t help her screech when Lexa cups her cheek with icy cold hands to kiss her hello, her lips chapped from the wind outside, but she’s glad to have her home.

Lexa showers - arguably for as long as Clarke did - as Clarke finishes their soup, tossing half the ingredients for Gustus to eat without a shred of guilt in her soul. When Lexa comes back to the kitchen with a thick stack of mail in her hands, wearing the sweatshirt Clarke had gotten her - the one with “bride” embroidered in the front - and her hair up in a messy bun, Clarke can’t help but fall a little bit more in love for her.

“Have you seen the RSVP cards we got this afternoon?” Lexa asks as she sits on the stool across from Clarke, leaning on the island as she spreads the little envelopes on the marble countertop. 

“Not yet, I was waiting for you,” Clarke murmurs as she dries tosses a spoon in the sink after trying the soup and lowering the heat on the burner to let it cook for a little longer. At Lexa’s raised eyebrow and skeptical glare, Clarke shrugs and adds the real reason, “And I got distracted binge watching The Walking Dead with Gustus. Why?”

Lexa turns her attention to the cards again, pulling them out of their envelopes one by one, “They’re a little-” she bites her bottom lip and scrunches her brow, like she can’t quite put to words what she thinks of them. Clarke walks around the island until she’s standing beside Lexa and reaches for the cards Lexa is handing to her, “Well, they all have jokes in them.”

Clarke shifts through the small stack in her hands, trying her mightest not to burst out laughing when she realizes what these jokes are about.

_ “Is this one for real or am I in for another prank?” _

_ “I’ll show up but if this is another fake I’ll murder both of you.” _

_ “Should I get only one present or pretend weddings count too?” _

Even Raven’s has something along the same lines, nevermind that she’s known about their relationship since the first date and actually helped Lexa with the proposal itself. Everyone who had been at the cruise when they first got married, everyone who even heard about it in one of the  _ many _ retellings Clarke had to sit through as Raven and Octavia exaggerated it to nonsense, everyone had written something making fun of them.

Clarke chuckles as she drops the cards back on the island and wraps her arms around Lexa, pressing her chest on her back and leaning her chin on her shoulder, “I guess we still have some explaining to do.”

Her throat tightens as Lexa sinks into her embrace, leaning back to press a kiss on her neck - not everyone can say they have married their soulmate twice.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it!!
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who left kudos and comments on this! It was my first time trying my hand on something a bit more funny, so seeing that you guys enjoyed it definitely brightened up my day :')

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://sassymajesty.tumblr.com/) and send me your thoughts!


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